HERZOG: Let's go for it, guys.
Sound... Rolling... Cameras...
GORBACHEV: Okay.PALMER: Okay?
HERZOG: All rolling?
HERZOG: Meeting Gorbachev,
for a German, is burdened by history.
The Nazi invasion left Russia a devastated country
with some 25 million dead.
Mikhail Gorbachev witnessed the war as an adolescent.
Okay.
Mikhail Sergeyevich,
please allow me to explain myself.
I'm a German,
and the first German that you probably met wanted to kill you.
But he was the enemy.
HERZOG: Months later I still had my doubts.
Did he just want to say something nice to me?
But during the last of our three conversations
spanning half a year,
I understood that everything about Gorbachev was genuine.
In April 2018,
we met again at the headquarters of his foundation.
To the left, Andre Singer,
with whom I have a long history of collaborations.
We had planned to meet Mikhail Gorbachev a month earlier,
but at that time he was hospitalized.
Having been released a few days prior,
he literally summoned us to conclude our conversations.
"Ah, you are trying to steal something from my pocket," he says here.
He had the great gifts to establish an immediate rapport with people,
here, our Russian sound man.
And, Andre, the real bribery!
Shall we open it?Yeah, let's...
This was a belated birthday gift,
all made by a chocolatier in London,
without any sugar,
as one of the major health issues of Mikhail Gorbachev
was diabetes.
It's chocolate.
Sugar free.
It's all chocolate.
Don't take it away. Don't take it away. Leave it there!
SINGER: And then this comes out
and each of these has chocolates inside.
HERZOG: During transport,
the G of his name had broken off,
which he accepted with good humor.
He was 87 years old now.
So, you wouldn't think this is yours?
HERZOG: He was born in the North Caucasus village of Privolnoe
on March 2nd 1931
as the son of peasants.
Here in the village cemetery,
all of his family has been laid to rest.
This is the grave of his father Sergei Andreyevich,
a highly-decorated war veteran.
In the summer of 1944,
his mother received a letter,
that Sergei had died a hero's death at the front.
But a few days later a letter from him arrived,
he was alive and well.
A year later, somebody ran up to Mikhail and cried,
"Your father is coming.
"At first,
"I didn't believe it," said Mikhail,
"but then I saw him.
"What we were feeling is hard to describe.
"He grabbed me and embraced me.
"He said something that I've remembered all my life,
"we fought until we ran out of fight, that's how you must live."
HERZOG: His mother, Maria Panteleevna,
was strict and strong-minded.
She remained illiterate all her life.
In the beginning, she had not wanted to marry his father.
During his childhood, until he went to school,
he lived much of his time
with his maternal grandparents,
who treated him with tenderness.
Here, his home village as it looks today.
It is hard to imagine
that from such a godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere,
one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century emerged.
Two of his uncles and one aunt died here from starvation in the 1930s.
He remembers that he would spend nights in the stable,
sleeping next to a new-born calf,
with a goose nearby hatching an egg.
His family moved from an isolated farmhouse to this place in Privolnoe.
HERZOG: You were smart as a kid.
I read in your Memoirs
that you could listen to the harvester and strange sounds
and you would know what was going wrong.
HERZOG: During their record harvest,
they spent 20 hours a day on their machine
without stopping.
They did this for a full week.
Gorbachev's father insisted on sharing his medal with his son.
This was against the rules,
and hence, young Mikhail only received the second-highest medal
for Soviet farmers.
He also excelled in school.
HERZOG: With a medal from school for his exceptional grades,
and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
for his proletarian achievements,
Mikhail was, without any entry exam,
admitted to the most prestigious school of them all,
Moscow State University.
He enrolled in law school without exactly knowing why.
He was deeply provincial
and had to study hard to catch up.
He transformed himself into a broadly knowledgeable man.
Soon, he excelled in academic studies
and became a youth leader for the entire school.
Here, one of the rare photos of him with two fellow students.
Apart from hard studies,
there was also fun, socialist style.
Here, a satire on the decadent boogie-woogie,
the dance of the class enemy, America.
During one of these events,
he met the love of his life, Raisa.
Mikhail Gorbachev graduated with highest honors.
He applied to work
for the state prosecutor's office in Moscow but was turned down.
He was told young lawyers had to start out in the provinces.
He asked to be sent to his homeland,
and began working in the prosecutor's office in Stavropol,
but soon he realized this did not suit him.
He chose a political career instead.
Quickly he rose in the ranks of the young Communist League,
the Komsomol.
His rise was steady.
Rather high up in the ranks,
he wanted to know under which conditions
the poor peasants lived and worked.
He visited every outpost,
and since most of the time there was no car, he would hitch a truck.
And when there was no transportation at all,
he would travel on foot, for days.
This was unheard of,
a Communist apparatchik never ever came on foot.
The peasants adored him.
Gorbachev introduced modern mechanized methods in sheep-shearing,
which soon were adopted throughout the entire Soviet Union.
He would have the honor
to hand over the flag to the most outstanding brigade.
Having attained the rank of party boss in the Region of Stavropol,
Gorbachev had a colossal achievement
by opening the Great Stavropol Canal,
a project Stalin had tried in vain.
HERZOG: The Politburo, in Moscow, including Brezhnev,
took notice of him.
Presenting the October Revolution Medal to Gorbachev,
Brezhnev, already senile, fumbles the ceremony.
The microphone is open enough to pick up an aide whispering Gorbachev's correct name,
and Brezhnev then says,
"What was it we started over there,"
and Gorbachev provides the missing word, "canal."
As a consequence of this recognition,
Gorbachev was called to Moscow
and appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee.
The Soviet Union was in full decline.
Long queues formed, but the stores were empty.
Gorbachev describes that errors in centralized planning and distribution
aggravated the situation.
Rural areas had fallen into oblivion,
peasants abandoned their villages for the city,
which made the situation even more dire.
Gorbachev, curious by nature,
visited countries abroad to see why they fared better.
Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany.
One of the countries was Hungary,
where he met Miklos Nemeth,
the future Prime Minister of his country.
I met Gorbachev a bit earlier.
Because he was called up to Moscow
to be the Party Secretary responsible for agriculture.
Now, the Hungarian economy, that part of the economy,
the agriculture, was quite strong
and I would say even effective.
So, Hungary was able to produce food and meat, and so on,
for 17 to 18 million people.
The countryside was ten million. Mmm?
So our shelves in the shops were full.
So, I escorted him twice to the countryside in a car.
I immediately realized that this man is a new brush.
Open minded, straightforward,
asking very good questions.
And, not focusing on the gifts,
or whatever the local bosses offered him.
You know,
previous Soviet bosses arrived to Budapest,
and there were rumors, backed by facts,
that the Party bosses always requested
six sets of suits for hunting, for whatever,
for social reasons,
and the Hungarian tailors worked overnight for two-three days.
For instance, my wife's father was part of this tailors' group,
for Brezhnev.
Because Gorbachev did not ask for anything.
He did not drink, no alcohol.
He was always focusing on business.
He wanted to understand
why Hungary was capable and able to produce
such a great amount of food, meat and agricultural products.
So, I thought immediately,
"If this is a first step in the process
"of eliminating the old guard in Moscow,
"there might be a chance for us to introduce our reforms further on."
The General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party,
in a group of people around him,
publicly denounced him,
and saying that this man will be digging up
the grave for our system.
HERZOG: During the May Parade, 1982,
Gorbachev had already been appointed
as a full member of the Politburo.
He was able to take his place on the balcony
among very old men.
Brezhnev had been Secretary General for 17 years.
He was barely able to lift his hand.
Within a few months,
he would be the first one to die.
As customary in such occasions,
his body was laid out on display for his family,
state guests and the public.
On November 15, 1982,
at Brezhnev's funeral,
Andropov had already been voted in as the new leader.
From early on, Andropov had been Gorbachev's mentor.
He was the one who, with foresight,
advised him to move beyond agriculture
and make himself knowledgeable in other fields,
like economy and foreign policy.
HERZOG: Only a year and three months later,
he was dead.
Like all Soviet leaders,
he was buried at the Kremlin wall.
Who would be the next leader?
The world would know by who was first in line to receive the condolences,
it was Chernenko.
Gromyko, the perennial Foreign Minister was bypassed.
Chernenko at this time was already terminally ill.
Only seldom he would leave the hospital.
For the public, his hospital room was rigged up as a fake polling station,
where he would cast his ballot.
Watch the hand at his waist.
An aide behind him discreetly kept him upright.
This bizarre ceremony required him standing up
in a suit.
Fake working sessions were also staged
to make believe he was running the country.
He lasted just 13 months
and then he, too, died.
This time, Gorbachev led the condolences...
Chernenko joined his predecessors at the Kremlin wall.
Gorbachev, chosen as the youngest leader in Soviet history,
received the world's heads of state.
Bush, Sr., among them,
would become one of the most important players
in his future political life.
And then, Margaret Thatcher,
who had recognized long ago Gorbachev's extraordinary political talents.
Helmut Kohl was there as well.
Sizing up the crowd and the task ahead,
he seems to hesitate.
First, according to ritual,
he praises the achievements of Chernenko,
the last of the fossils.
Gorbachev, however,
knew he had to start fundamental changes immediately.
HERZOG: Unlike previous leaders,
he immediately set out to listen and speak directly to the people.
Gorbachev describes the social and economic decline of this time,
"Finances were in disarray,
"there was a shortage of foodstuff and building materials,
"there was bribery and the black market.
"There were mountains of uninstalled equipment,
"machines were carelessly assembled and shipped, with parts missing.
"Railway trucks loaded with goods were abandoned at line ends,
"subject to spoilage and pilferage.
"Nothing worked anymore.
"A complete restructuring, called perestroika, was essential."
What, uh, you as,
in your early years had to do was completely innovative
and nobody knew where it was going to lead you.
It was to such, um, extent
that one of your closest advisers, Yakovlev,
once famously said,
we were in a situation, or you were in a situation
where we were like blind people
handing a mirror over to the deaf
in exchange for a balalaika.
So, it was very unknown terrain for everybody.
And for you including.
HERZOG: Leaders around the world immediately realized
that this was new in style, and more so in substance.
THATCHER: I like Mr. Gorbachev.
We can do business together.
We both believe in our own political systems.
He firmly believes in his, I firmly believe in mine.
We are never going to change one another.
So, that is not in doubt.
I think we both believe that they are the more likely to succeed,
if we can build up confidence in one another and trust in one another
about each other's approach.
When we took office...
The Cold War was as cold as it could get.
The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan.
President Carter cut off everything.
no athletes to the Olympics, no meetings with Gromyko,
no nothing.
So, at the funeral of Chernenko,
Gorbachev became Secretary General.
And he was fresh as a daisy.
So, you could really converse with him.
He was obviously very well-informed and very smart.
And, so, I said to our group afterwards,
"This is like no other Soviet leader we've dealt with.
"He's very, very able, he's tough,
"but at least you can converse with him."
Well, there was a big debate in the Reagan administration
between the people at the Defense Department
and the CIA thought the Soviet Union could never change.
And me and President Reagan and we thought they could.
HERZOG: Other people, like in Poland,
welcomed the change with more sinister reasoning.
Already several years before,
Poland had, led by their labour leader, Lech Walesa,
challenged the system.
HERZOG: The second pillar of Gorbachev's reforms was glasnost,
making politics transparent for the people.
This and Perestroika would eventually cause an avalanche
that would sweep away the entire system.
HERZOG: On April 26, 1986,
nuclear reactor no. 4 exploded at Chernobyl.
The consequences were enormous,
not only for the local population,
but also for Europe.
In Gorbachev's political life,
this was a key moment, a marker.
Now, there had to be fundamental changes,
no matter what.
HERZOG: Can I ask about Chernobyl?
Because interesting is that, for you, Mikhail Sergeivich,
this was a borderline,
the world before Chernobyl, the world after Chernobyl.
There was rampant incompetence in the system,
and that there was cover-ups on all levels
and a self-destructive secrecy at the very top
of the political establishment.
So, apparently, Chernobyl was for you the borderline
where you understood
this is a time when we have to change our political culture.
I remember having read
that even the President of the Academy of Sciences here in Russia declared,
"Oh, yeah, it's just a little thing.
"You drink a few, uh, a little bit of vodka and sleep it off."
That was your information at the time.
I'm quite aware...
HERZOG: Gorbachev then offered to meet Reagan anywhere,
even Hiroshima, to agree to ban nuclear testing,
despite the fact that leaders like Margaret Thatcher
were strongly opposed.
I told him that I didn't think you could disinvent nuclear weapons.
That nuclear weapons had been the best deterrent to war
the world had ever known,
and that if you took them right down,
then you're at risk of a conventional and chemical war,
and if ever you put... Enhanced that risk,
then the moment that war started it would be more terrible,
and it would be won by the first person to get nuclear weapons.
HERZOG: The historical meeting did not take place in Hiroshima,
but halfway for Reagan and Gorbachev in Iceland.
It was only a few months after Chernobyl.
The meeting place, a private home in Reykjavik, the Hofdi House.
To everyone's surprise,
Gorbachev and Reagan personally connected very well.
Although no final agreement was signed,
this was a breakthrough.
The full abolition of nuclear weapons was discussed,
but America would not give up ambitions to weaponize space.
For this moment, things remained inconclusive.
No treaty right away.
But this handshake was seen by the world as momentous.
Hofdi House now,
more than three decades later.
We met tourists from around the world,
here, a group from Norway.
Father and son re-enact the iconic pose.
They even check the precise position of the hands,
studying a photo stored on their cellphone.
What was planted here
had led to historical treaties of nuclear arms reduction.
Right away,
America and the Soviet Union
interpreted the meeting differently.
George Shultz, the Secretary of State,
short-sighted, was deeply skeptical.
So, in the end,
we are deeply disappointed
at this outcome.
The basic achievements of Reykjavik were,
number one,
all of the backup,
the material that led to the INF Treaty and the START Treaty,
were all worked out at Reykjavik.
But I think beyond that
these two men, Reagan and Gorbachev,
they sort of clicked.
And, I mean, they went back and forth and all,
but they came to know each other,
respect each other.
I'm puzzled about what makes atomic weapons so persistent.
They're so dangerous they can wipe out the human race in a few hours,
and everybody wants to get rid of it,
and we can't.
How do we explain this?
What is the nature of these weapons systems?
Yes, and it's your work...
BAKER: He's absolutely right.
He looked with appalling horror
at the fact that we'e now approaching a nuclear arms race.
So do I.
I think it's terrible.
I mean, we had every reason to believe we were over that.
It's not just the U.S. and Russia,
but nuclear weapons are proliferating,
and we have to get back...
Back in the Gorbachev days, we were...
On both sides we knew
these weapons are terribly dangerous things.
And we reduced them I think by about 30% of what they were then,
so it was a huge amount.
Whether or not people will do the things necessary,
I don't know,
but we have to get back to having reasonable discussions with Russia,
and probably that takes some sort of jolt for Mr. Putin to realize
that the hostility is not good
and that he'd be much better off with a more open relationship with the U.S.
Of course, uh, Cold War
is an abnormal form of international relations,
and it is fraught with military risks.
But at the moment the mood,
the international mood is coming back to Cold War.
HERZOG: His quest for democracy and a new balance in the world
made him phenomenally popular in the West.
HERZOG: America made him their mascot, the good Soviet!
His popularity rose even higher
when he withdrew all Soviet troops from Afghanistan
after ten years of military occupation.
He supported the American led coalition during the first Gulf War.
HERZOG: I was there with my camera after Saddam Hussein's troops
had set all of Kuwait on fire.
Gorbachev's support delighted America.
I know that the way the Soviet Union
cooperated with the United States of America in their approach
to Saddam Hussein's unprovoked aggression against Kuwait
was the clearest indication up to that time that the Cold War was over.
HERZOG: The global dream was big,
but the forces Gorbachev had unleashed
triggered independence movements
in practically all corners of the Soviet Bloc.
Gorbachev understood, unlike earlier Soviet leaders,
that this could not be stopped by harsh laws
or tanks rolling in.
HERZOG: In the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia,
people formed a human chain stretching 600 km,
all three countries connected in a symbolic quest for independence,
almost half of the population took part.
HERZOG: In East Germany, people met in defiance against their regime
that falsely acted in the name of the people, the masses.
But each Monday, hundreds of thousands assembled,
chanting, "We are the people."
HERZOG: These chants resounded in other countries of the Eastern Bloc.
After 40 years of one-party system,
after 40 years of failures,
definitely the Hungarian people and society
is going to vote us out of the power.
What will you be doing with your troops
on the soil of Hungary?
And by that time I knew that they stationed
a couple of nuclear warheads
targeting Italy and France, including Venice, for instance.
At that moment he grabbed the arms of his chair
and told me quite clearly, "Until I am sitting in this chair
"there will be no repetition '56."
HERZOG: That year with brutal force
Soviet tanks suppressed the uprising of the Hungarian people.
Three decades later, Miklos Nemeth
cautiously started dismantling the barbed wire
on the Hungarian border with the West.
And end of March
they started to roll down the barbed wire
for three and a half kilometer long.
Why?
Because I wanted to test
the reaction of
the Communist countries,
but mainly the reaction of Moscow.
There was no knocking on my door by the Soviet ambassador
asking me that what are you doing?
No ring on the hotline from Moscow.
So we planned the next step.
And Alois Mock, the that time Foreign Minister of Austria
called up my Foreign Minister
that "Why don't we make
"a meeting on both sides of the border
"and inviting the international press?"
And in front of them we can cut the barbed wire
and that will be covered in the press worldwide.
So for 200 meters longer
we had to rebuild the barbed wire,
making it possible for the press
and for the two Foreign Ministers
to cut the barbed wire.
HERZOG: Visibly for the entire world,
the Iron Curtain started to be lifted.
However Austrian evening news was clueless
about the magnitude of the event.
HERZOG: Their lead story was about slugs.
The anchor woman gives gardeners a tip
to pour some beer into a jar and leave it overnight.
This would attract the slugs, lovers of beer.
And if you were lucky, you might trap
quite a number of them, up to 70 or 80.
And now she comes to the miscellaneous news of the day,
the cutting of the border fence.
It took the world some time to grasp the significance of this event.
Today, the Iron Curtain remains only in the form of souvenirs.
Next came the fall of the Berlin Wall...
This was the biggest of all symbols
but in practical terms it meant
that millions of East Germans were suddenly free.
Even more than with the human chain in the Baltics
this was not negotiated by politicians.
HERZOG: It was an overwhelming manifestation
of human longing for freedom and unity.
There seems to be a sense for the right moment...
Glasnost, Perestroika had its right moment.
A long evolution, um, leading to this,
a long evolution leading to the German Reunification.
The Ancient Greek actually had even a god for the right moment, Kairos.
This God was a real god, not just an allegory.
And, I have the feeling
when Kohl arrived with his ten points of Reunification,
everybody was somehow surprised and everybody...
You, Mr President and Helmut Kohl,
understood the significance of the moment.
HERZOG: I did not know that, I have to...
Let me apologize for this crazy remark!
Yes... Okay, but you had to overcome this...
HERZOG: Mikhail Gorbachev knew that I had walked on foot
around my own country, Germany.
It was my personal quest,
because the idea of reunification had been abandoned by so many.
The former Chancellor Willy Brandt and most of his party.
Gunter Grass, the Nobel laureate writer,
Margaret Thatcher in Britain,
Mitterrand in France and many others.
But here were two men who would make it happen.
I think the overwhelming majority of Germans
is deeply grateful to the achievement,
the extraordinary, um, efforts and role
that the President played in the German reunification.
HERZOG: This absolutely overwhelming approval
and liking for you personally, we love you.
And I love you in particular
because reunification for me was important.
You said something very important, which...
I find significant.
"Who comes late in politics will be punished by life."
And that's a very deep insight.
So, um,
do you think that dissolving of the Soviet Union was inevitable,
or did this event,
um, somehow
speed up in a way that nobody could stop it anymore?
And you are speaking of Boris Yeltsin,
but you are also speaking of the putschists, of the coup d'etat plotters.
So, from both sides, there was, uh,
encroachment.
In August 1991,
whilst Gorbachev and his family were on vacation in the Crimea,
a coup d'etat took place.
Hardline politicians, their supporters in the KGB
and the military rolled tanks into the streets of Moscow
and declared a state of emergency.
HERZOG: Gorbachev was almost completely cut off from communications
but he observed naval vessels zeroing in on him.
He secretly recorded a video he intended to smuggle out.
HERZOG: The putsch was rejected by the people.
They stood up to the tanks, forcing their commanders to retreat.
It was the people who seized the tanks.
Boris Yeltsin,
at that time the President of Russia, sensed his chance.
HERZOG: He did not want to miss this moment in history
and climbed a tank himself.
He is regarded as the savior of democracy.
HERZOG: Gorbachev, safe by now, returned to Moscow...
Returned to what?
The Soviet Union had begun to unravel.
The Baltic States and Georgia had already declared independence.
The center itself became centrifugal.
Yeltsin wanted even Russia, the heart of the USSR, to secede.
HERZOG: Yeltsin had the Russian Parliament abolish the Communist Party,
some ten million members strong.
HERZOG: But this is not the real solution, in politics ever, but...
HERZOG: Yeah.
HERZOG: History accelerated. On December 8, 1991,
there was a secret meeting in Belarus without Gorbachev.
Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus agreed upon a blueprint
to dissolve the Soviet Union.
The table for Yeltsin was set.
HERZOG: Less than two weeks later, in Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan,
all of the remaining members of the old Soviet Union followed suit.
It was the 21st of December 1991.
The dynamics of collapse had become irreversible.
Gorbachev immediately resigned.
This is what the end of an entire era
spanning most of the 20th Century looks like.
HERZOG: Television tried hard to turn this into a TV spectacle.
Network executives tried to persuade him
to sign his resignation in front of the cameras,
and then the main camera would zero in on his face.
Gorbachev, maintaining his dignity to the end, refuses.
He signs before the official camera is switched on.
HERZOG: Mikhail Sergeyevich,
the end of the Soviet Union
was a tragedy for so many people.
But it must have been a tragedy for you personally.
Can you explain what it meant for you personally?
HERZOG: And how do you feel, is there pain inside of you?
HERZOG: Mikhail Gorbachev is a deeply lonesome man,
in particular as he's considered a traitor among many Russians.
The early death of his wife Raisa
has aggravated his solitude.
She was his greatest support, she meant everything to him.
HERZOG: Oh yeah, so you were lucky!
HERZOG: Unlike other wives of former Soviet leaders,
she was always with him,
in the corridors of power in the Kremlin,
on the streets of Moscow,
and on the international stage.
More so, she was his most trusted confidante.
His marriage was profoundly happy.
HERZOG: Raisa and Mikhail had a daughter and two granddaughters,
seen here during an official photo session.
Do you remember her voice, her laughter?
Her smell, the perfume?
HERZOG: How much do you miss her?
I would like to share
from the President about how does he see his legacy in world history?
What should be on your gravestone?
I'm asking God for two years, just for two years.
And providence...
Providence will give him 400 years for his voice
to live on.
Da.