The Oil and Glory Interview: Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev is on one of his regular swings through the West. I caught up with him in Washington, where he appeared at the Reconciliation Forum, a conference sponsored by the Americas Business Council.

This time, the trip coincides with the 20th anniversary of the first vivid signs of the coming Soviet collapse, culminating in the November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Given the state of global finance, triggered by the U.S. banking crisis, Gorbachev is doing not a little bit of gloating.

Speaking before an audience today in Washington, Gorbachev called Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "a puppet of the United States." I asked him whether he regarded the financial crisis as a comeuppance for the U.S. He said yes, and later offered up that the worsening war in Afghanistan, too, is just desserts for Washington.

Here is the story in Business Week. Here is the transcript of the interview.