In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev stepped onto a street in the American capital, Washington, and began to shake hands with ordinary people with great enthusiasm. But this style of political expression was a bit unfamiliar to his friend and US President Ronald Reagan.
American citizen Anna Maria Guzman was also watching all this scene sitting in the park.
Reagan and Gorbachev ended decades of tension between their countries, ushering in an unexpected series of ties that would ultimately lead to a major shift in world politics.
It is said that initially the Soviet leader and his American counterpart had nothing in common.
Both belonged to countries with a severe lack of trust, but when Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, one of his main goals was to end the Cold War and to end the Cold War with Russia. Relationships should be improved.
To end the Cold War, President Reagan initially contacted key Communist Party officials, Leonid Brezhnev, Tory Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, but did not receive a positive response.
``When Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party in March 1985 after the death of Konstantin Chernenko,'' said Jack Matlock, then-adviser to President Reagan, who later became ambassador to Moscow, the White House felt that the relationship had reached a certain point. There may be improvement.'
He told AFP that President Reagan had called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" early in his presidency, but was in favor of dialogue.
At first Gorbachev did not give a very encouraging response to President Reagan, Matlock says, but later the two began to communicate and within just three years their positions began to resemble each other.
John Lenzowski, who served as an adviser to President Reagan, says Gorbachev was not much of an idealist.
"When Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party, he saw that the Soviet Union was facing many problems that he tried to solve in order to save the Soviet system," Linzovsky says.
During this time, he could not maintain much contact with Reagan, on which President Reagan felt that this approach of the Soviet Union would prove to be dangerous for both countries.
Some time later, President Reagan invited Gorbachev to visit Washington, but no clear response was forthcoming and the matter remained in abeyance for months.
"Still, the White House sensed that there was a willingness on the other side to talk about nuclear disarmament," Matlock recalled.
According to Matlock, 'basically both philosophies wanted peace'.
"Gorbachev felt that he had found a system that needed to be changed, but that he would not be able to do so as long as the Cold War continued," he said.
The turning point between the two leaders came at the Geneva summit in November 1985. At the time, talks between the countries were tough and little was agreed upon, but a seed of trust took root in separate meetings between the two leaders.
A year later, Reagan and Gorbachev met in ReykjavÃk and continued the talks, but little progress was made.
"At the time, the media called the summit a failure, but the reality was that both sides were agreeing on many things," Matlock said.
When Gorbachev came to Washington in 1987, the two had cordial meetings and made significant progress on limiting nuclear weapons.
Matlock also told AFP that "Initially, Gorbachev thought that President Reagan was too conservative, but over time, as the two met and understood each other, they became close friends."
Gorbachev also visited the United States in 2004 to attend the funeral of President Reagan.
"I think they both had the same ideals, both hated nuclear weapons and hoped they could get rid of them, and that was true," Matlock says.
According to him, 'very few people thought that this was not possible, but they did it.'
