Moscow, December 25, 1991

Stu Loory alone witnesses another little piece of history. He goes ahead of the CNN crew to make sure the rental vans are in place outside. “I walk around closer to where the trucks are. A Kremlin worker comes towards me holding the flag folded up in a rectangle under his arm.” Loory stops the man and takes a photograph, and thereby secures the only picture of the last flag of the USSR to fly over the Kremlin as it is carried away. He immediately regrets not offering to buy it. Tom Johnson later tries to acquire the emblem from a Kremlin official, but the offer is politely yet firmly refused.

As he leaves the Senate Building with the television crew, Johnson waves his Mont Blanc in the air and calls out, “How much do you think I can get for this?” The technicians and engineers cheer and slap each other on the back. “We did it! We did it!” cries Johnson.

They have pulled off a remarkable feat. Mikhail Gorbachev abdicated on television with an inscription in the lower right-hand corner of the screen informing 153 countries of the world that they are seeing it courtesy of CNN. “In the annals of competitive journalism, this was an unprecedented victory,” claimed Loony.⁶

In Washington President Bush’s aides show him the text of a statement they have drafted praising Gorbachev for liberating the Soviet people from the smothering embrace of a totalitarian dictatorship. After looking it over, the president holds a conference call with his advisers on whether this is a proper response. Scowcroft suggests that Gorbachev’s resignation is too important “to kiss off with a statement” from the press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater.⁷

Bush decides to take Marine One from Camp David to Washington and address the nation from the Oval Office on the historic significance of what has just happened in the Kremlin. The networks and cable television companies suspend their scheduled programs at 9 p.m. EST on Christmas Day to allow the president to make his own television address from the Oval Office. While sparing Gorbachev’s sensitivities by not declaring outright that the fall of the Soviet Union is a victory for the United States in the Cold War—for two years he prohibited his staff from depicting events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as a triumph for the United States—Bush uses the word “victory” a number of times, clearly implying that America is the winner. The nuclear threat is receding, he says, Eastern Europe is free, and the Soviet Union itself is no more. “This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It’s a victory for the moral force of our values. Every American can take pride in this victory.”

After paying tribute to Gorbachev, the U.S. president acknowledges the new reality. He announces that the United States recognizes and welcomes the emergence of a free, independent, and democratic Russia, “led by its courageous president, Boris Yeltsin.” He declares that the U.S. embassy in Moscow will in future be the embassy to Russia. He says he supports Russia’s assumption of the USSR’s seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. And from today America will recognize the independence of Ukraine, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan. Bush had delayed formal recognition of Russia until after Gorbachev resigned as a personal courtesy to his deposed friend and his partner in ending the Cold War. His administration has already recognized Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Baltic republics that completed the makeup of the original Soviet Union.

“This is a day of great hope for all Americans,” concludes President Bush. “May God bless the people of the new nations in the Commonwealth of Independent States. And on this special day of peace on earth, good will toward men, may God continue to bless the United States of America. Good night.”

Now that the Soviet Union is history, White House officials feel free to express the opinion that Gorbachev clung on too long to power. Gorbachev “is leaving at a level that’s a lot lower than he would have had a month ago,” an administration official tells the New York Times. “He’s taken away from his own currency and cost himself a bit of his place in history by letting events pass him by. It’s sad to see a man of such stature and historical importance misjudge events that way.”⁸ The anonymous spokesman claims that Bush privately wrote off Gorbachev after the Middle East conference in October in Madrid, at which the penniless Soviet delegation had to ask the Spanish government to pick up their hotel bills.