The Washington/Camp David Summit 30 Years Ago

Washington, D.C., 2 June 2020 – The Washington/Camp David summit 30 years ago today brought Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev together for three days of intense discussions of the future of Europe, the unification of Germany that would happen later that year 1990, the economic crisis facing the Soviet Union, and the tense stand-off between Moscow and the independence-minded Baltic republics, according to declassified Soviet and American documents published today by the National Security Archive.

The newly published evidence adds fascinating detail to the most thoroughly documented account of the meeting, Chapter 7 (pages 571-703) in The Last Superpower Summits (CEU Press, 2016), which is forthcoming in a new two-volume paperback edition in 2020.  Today’s e-book combines the new material with a core collection on the Washington/Camp David summit published by the Archive on the 20th anniversary in 2010.

Highlights of the new evidence include President Bush’s own handwriting and underlining for emphasis on the highly classified transcript of Secretary of State James Baker’s Moscow conversation with Gorbachev on May 18 prior to the summit.