Three Years in Gorbachev’s Soviet Union

Lawrence Goodrich served three years (1985-1988) as a U.S. diplomat at the United States Embassy in Moscow and the Consulate General in Leningrad. He will share his experiences there, including the “spy dust” affair, the Chernobyl disaster, the Marine Security Guard scandal, the gradual thaw in US-Soviet relations under Reagan and Gorbachev, and the radical changes wrought by Gorbachev’s policies of “glasnost” and “perestroika” that would lead to the Soviet Union’s collapse three years later. He’ll also answer questions on today’s Russia and the war in Ukraine.