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Defending Bernie Sanders’s Sister-City Efforts in the U.S.S.R.
A former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union notes that sister-city
programs were strongly supported by the U.S. government.
March 6, 2020
To the Editor:
“Papers Detail Soviet Hopes for Sanders” (front page, March 6) is a
distortion of history. The truth is that Bernie Sanders, then the mayor
of Burlington, Vt., opened a sister-city relationship with Yaroslavl in
1988 with the encouragement and strong support of the United States
government.
The visit was not used as propaganda by the Soviet Union. I know because
I was U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. at the time and gave strong
official support to Mayor Sanders’s effort, along with those of other
American mayors, to establish ties with cities in the Soviet Union.
Expanding people-to-people ties was one of the important goals of
President Ronald Reagan’s policy toward the U.S.S.R., a policy that was
continued by President George H.W. Bush.
The explanation the Soviets gave to local Communist officials in
Yaroslavl — that sister-city relationships are useful for “carrying out
information-propaganda efforts” — was actually an effort to justify
Mikhail Gorbachev’s new openness to people who had no contacts with
Americans and were trained to see all Americans as spies.
In fact, the contacts played an important role in opening up Soviet
society and facilitating Mr. Gorbachev’s reforms.
Jack F. Matlock Jr.
Durham, N.C.
The writer is the author of “Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.”
====
To the Editor:
In 1985, three years before Mayor Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vt.,
visited the Soviet Union to set up a sister city link, The Times
reported that President Ronald Reagan was urging “bold new steps to open
the way for our peoples [Americans and Soviets] to participate in an
unprecedented way in the building of peace.” Sister cities were among
the initiatives he promoted.
This call came despite the fact that, as your article claims, the Soviet
Union was “a country many Americans then still considered an enemy.”
Will you next publish an article about how President Reagan was the tool
of a Soviet propaganda effort?
Barbara Keys
Durham, England
The writer is a professor of history at Durham University.
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