The man who helped persuade Margaret Thatcher that Mikhail Gorbachev was a man Britain ‘could do business with’ will give a keynote lecture in the Granite City tonight.
Professor Archie Brown, Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University, will give the City of Aberdeen Gorbachev lecture on Wednesday, May 9 as part of a three-day Cold War conference being held at the University of Aberdeen.
Gorbachev was awarded the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen in December 1993, and it is hoped the lecture, entitled 'Perestroika and the End of the Cold War', will help reaffirm the link between the City and one of the major figures of the late 20th century.
A former academic adviser to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, Professor Brown was probably the first to mark Gorbachev out as someone different. It was he – at an important Chequers seminar in 1983 - who drew the then Prime Minister's attention to the likely emergence of a reformist Soviet leader, prompting the Iron Lady to famously comment that Gorbachev was "a man she could do business with."
Professor Paul Dukes, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen was responsible for organising the conference and lecture, the latter of which received funding from the Aberdeen City Council Common Good fund.
He said, "Archie Brown continues to make a huge contribution towards understanding the seismic event that was the end of the Cold War and post-Soviet Russia. His scholarship on the subject is without question and he remains a frequent traveller to both Russia and the United States. We are delighted he has agreed to give the City of Aberdeen Gorbachev lecture."
In the Queen's Birthday Honours List of June 2005 Professor Brown was awarded the CMG 'For Services to UK-Russian relations and to the study of political science and international affairs'. And last year he attended Mikhail Gorbachev's 75th birthday celebrations in Moscow on March 2.
His book, The Gorbachev Factor has won several awards, while his most recent book, Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in perspective, was published in April 2007. His public lecture, entitled 'Perestroika and the End of the Cold War', will take place at 5.15pm in the Regent Lecture Theatre, King's College Campus, on Wednesday, May 9.