George H.W. Bush

© Peter Turnley, the White House, Washington, D.C., 1990

Guest post by Peter Turnley

One of the most surreal moments of my career was when I was introduced to President George H.W. Bush by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in the White House.

During a summit meeting in D.C. in 1990, I went in to the White House for a photo call, and President Bush recognized Gorbachev's personal photographer and said, "There's my old friend Yuri!" After the translation, Gorbachev looked around and saw me and said, "There's my old friend Peter!"

Then I heard Bush say in English, "Who is Peter?" Gorbachev replied in Russian and his translator Pavel said, "Peter is an American photographer—he's photographed me for a long time." President Bush laughed and said, "Nice to meet you, Peter!"

Peter

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ken: "Check out Kirk Tuck's story as well."

Comments

[Stephen Scharf]

Great story!

Thanks Peter (and Mike).

[Jim Arthur]

The PBS series American Experience reran an old episode (2008) on George H.W. Bush last night. The bits about his relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev were very interesting. The episode is at the top of the American Experience page.

[Giovanni Maggiora]

That's a cool one!
GHWB: a decent man. They rarely make them any more.

[Clayton]

Maguire-Williams. No need to post

[Ken]

Check out Kirk Tuck's story as well: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-two-times-i-met-and-worked-with.html

[Richard Popham]

I've been seeing these remembrances all over the place. Kirk Tuck has a good one on his site too. All of them remember his graciousness, humanity, statesmanship and desire to serve his country.

How times have changed.

[Jean]

Brilliant and funny! Thank you for sharing this, Peter.

[Fred Haynes]

Hey Mike, I know your busy, with many projects and ‘plates in the air’, but whatever happened to the Fuji camera review?
Fred

[John Friar]

What a wonderful story. And what an amazing privilege to have been in the presence of two great world leaders who had both courage and humility. Oh, how we need that right now.