Moscow in the Gorbachev era

I recently came across these reports of my three BBC World Service work visits to Moscow in 1988 for the summit meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union, and Ronald Reagan, president of the United States. At the time I was the World Service News Intake Co-ordinator (in plain English, newsgathering team leader). It was my job to make things happen while the clever stuff was done by the broadcasters and producers. It is interesting to look back at a time in Moscow before Vladimir Putin.

Here's what I wrote back then and loaded onto my website: Gorbachev's USSR