One of my earliest young adult memories was considering the craziness of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, the nuclear arms race, and the strategic military/political policy of “mutually assured destruction.”

Indeed, that conflict was the main reason my college degree was in Comparative Politics and History.

Thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of “glasnost” (openness), that mentality and related practical government rules allowed me to visit the Soviet Union twice during Gorbachev’s reign.

It allowed me to realize my goal of connecting with regular Russian people, to live there twice during that period, and make several Soviet friends. I still am connected to a few of them some 35 years later.

Gorbachev died yesterday, 30 August, at the age of 91 (a great life!).

I can simple say, thank you Mikhail Sergeevich, may you Rest In Peace and love, GOD BLESS.