Can Perestroika Survive?
WEDNESDAY, September 10, 2008, 6:30 P.M.
Free. Reservations Required. Please call 215.409.6700 or order online. or order online.
Annenberg
Center
for Education and Outreach
Kirby Auditorium
National Constitution Center
Independence Mall
525 Arch Street
Philadelphia
, PA
In a special companion program to the awarding of the 2008 Liberty Medal to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the National Constitution Center presents "Can Perestroika Survive?,” a public program that examines Gorbachev's reforms, the direction Russia was heading in when he stepped down from office in 1991, and how that compares to the leadership and vision of Vladimir Putin today. The program will cover topics such as restrictions placed on the press and limits to established religion in the Soviet Union as well as the current crisis with Georgia.
Leon Aron is a resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Aron was born in Moscow and came to the United States as a refugee from the Soviet Union in June 1978 at the age of twenty-four. He has contributed numerous articles on Russian affairs to newspapers and magazines and is a frequent guest of television and radio talk shows. Aron is the author of the first full-length scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life, and Russia’s Revolution: Essays 1989-2006. He is at work on a book about ideas and ideals that inspired and shaped the latest Russian Revolution, 1987–1991.
First posted to Moscow in 1961, career diplomat Jack Matlock, Jr. served as Ronal Reagan's principal adviser on Soviet and European affairs, and later as the U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R., 1987 – 1991. He is the author of Reagan and Gorbachev and Autopsy on an Empire. He was an eyewitness to Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership, the deepening and critically important relationship between Gorbachev and Reagan, and the end of the Cold War. Matlock has taught diplomacy at Princeton University, Columbia University and Hamilton College.
Trudy Rubin moderates. Her Worldview column runs in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesdays and Sundays. In the past five years she has visited Iraq nine times and has also written from Iran, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, China and South Korea . She is the author of Willful Blindness: the Bush Administration and Iraq, a book of her columns from 2002-2004. In 2001 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting.
The National Constitution Center is proud to award the 2008 Liberty Medal to former Soviet leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev for his courageous role in ending the dangerous, decades-long Cold War and in giving hope and freedom to millions who lived behind the Iron Curtain. The public ceremony will take place on Thursday, September 18, 2008 at the National Constitution Center on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.
Parking for this event is available for $7.50 at the National Constitution Center garage located at the rear of the building on Race Street between 5th and 6th Streets. Parking availability is subject to change. Please call the Center on the day of the program for more information. Please also see our directions by public transportation. http://www.constitutioncenter.org/visiting/VisitorInformation/index.shtml#Map
For reservations please call 215.409.6700 or order online. Programs at the National Constitution Center begin promptly and latecomers may not be admitted to the program. Please note that this program is subject to change.
Links:
The Liberty Medal
Reagan and Gorbachev
Leon Aron
Trudy Rubin