As I was about to leave President Gorbachev that day, I took off my watch and put it on his wrist. He seemed a little bewildered that I would treat him as I might an old friend. So I told him firmly, “Each time your reforms face difficulty, please look at this watch and remember your promise to me. If you do that, Heaven will surely open a path for you.”

       As he promised me, President Gorbachev met President Roh in San Francisco in June that year for a bilateral summit. Then, on September 30, 1990, South Korea and the Soviet Union signed a historic agreement to open diplomatic relations for the first time in eighty six years. Of course, politics is the job of politicians, and diplomacy is the job of diplomats. Sometimes, though, when a door has been closed for a long time, a religious person who has no interests at stake can be more effective.

       Four years later, President and Mrs. Gorbachev visited Seoul, and my wife and I hosted them at our home in the Hannam Dong neighborhood. He had already been removed from power by a coup d’état. Following the coup by anti-reformist forces opposed to perestroika, he had resigned his position as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and dissolved the party. As a communist, he had eliminated the Communist Party. The former president and first lady used chopsticks to eat the bulgogi and jabchae we had carefully prepared. When he was served su-jeong-gwa as dessert, Mr. Gorbachev repeated several times, “Korea has excellent traditional foods.” He and the first lady appeared quite different from the days when he was in office. Mrs. Gorbachev, who had previously been a thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist lecturing at Moscow State University, wore a necklace with a crucifix.

       “Mr. President, you did a great thing,” I told him. “You gave up your post as general secretary of the Soviet Union, but now you have become the president of peace. Because of your wisdom and courage, we now have the possibility to bring world peace. You did the most important, eternal, and beautiful thing for the world. You are a hero of peace who did God’s work. The name that will be remembered forever in the history of Russia will not be ‘Marx,’ ‘Lenin,’ or ‘Stalin.’ It will only be ‘Mikhail Gorbachev.’”

       I gave high praise to the decision by Mr. Gorbachev to bring about the breakup of the Soviet Union, the mother country of communism, without shedding blood.

       In response, Mr. Gorbachev said, “Rev. Moon, I have been greatly comforted by your words. Hearing your words gives me energy. I will devote the remainder of my life to projects that are for the sake of world peace.” And he firmly took my hand in his.