Mikhail Gorbachev Reports on the Trilateral Commission

During the significant changes that were brewing in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev (leader of the Soviet Union) met with members of the Trilateral Commission, a nongovernmental organization founded in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, North America, and Europe to foster mutual understanding and cooperation. In these notes from a Politburo meeting in January 1989, Gorbachev points to some of the questions and concerns that arose in his meeting with the former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the former president of France Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and the former Japanese prime minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone, all of who continued their involvement in foreign affairs and policies through this international commission. These notes show recognition on the part of these leaders that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were on the verge of a new relationship with each other and with the rest of the world. Gorbachev acknowledges that Eastern European countries might break away from the Soviet Union, and points to the importance of working with these countries on economic and political reforms to avoid this break.