This poignant transcript of the last official meeting between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev shows the two leaders practically avoiding any substantive discussion of the momentous changes in Soviet policy Gorbachev had just announced at the U.N. Instead, they wax nostalgic for their series of summits dating back to Geneva 1985, and Reagan presents the Soviet leader with an inscribed photograph of that meeting. Gorbachev is clearly eager to move forward with the President-elect, who demurs that "he would need a little time to review the issues" (even after eight years at Reagan's right hand?) but "wished to build on what President Reagan had accomplished, working with Gorbachev." Ironically, Bush says "he had no intention of stalling things. He naturally wanted to formulate prudent national security policies, but he intended to go forward." Yet, the transition to new hard-line advisers and the Bush White House determination to commission a months-long review of national security policy actually would stall forward progress on arms reductions and even any engagement with Gorbachev. The two men would not meet again for an entire year (until the Malta summit in December 1989), and by that time, the world would have changed around them, the Berlin Wall would be gone, German unification would be the absorbing controversy, and Gorbachev would be losing the ability on his side to deliver more of what he announced at the U.N. that very day.
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