How the Cold War Ended in Malta

Ben Crowley

March 31, 2022

We love learning all those little facts about the Soviet Union that many don’t know or have slipped out of public consciousness. The fact that the Cold War effectively ended in Malta is one we never thought we’d be hearing but it’s true.

The Cold War for anyone who missed the 20 ^th Century was the heated ideological battle and military build up between the East led by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the West led by the United States. The Cold War often turned into hot proxy wars, but never saw the USSR and US go directly head-to-head as they were also the two main nuclear powers, and the threat of a nuclear war was enough to stop them even facing off in battle. However, the Vietnam War, Korean War and Soviet-Afghan War are often considered the hot wars that were born out of the Cold War.

Just weeks after the fall of the Berlin wall from the 2 ^nd to 3 ^rd of December 1989, the Americans and Soviets agreed to meet in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Malta. The location was symbolic as the centre of the Mediterranean was considered to be where East meets west, and north meets south. It was also symbolic as the Malta conference was where Roosevelt and Churchill met in 1945 before continuing to Yalta in the Black Sea to meet Josef Stalin.

The summit was to be held aboard the two ships anchored in the middle of the ocean next to each other. The idea apparently originated from American President George HW Bush, who had been fascinated with the World War II meetings of then American President Franklin Roosevelt and various other world leaders of the time which regularly took place at sea. The Americans had their ship USS Belknap, and the Soviets their two ships the Slava and the Maxsim Gorkiy.

So where does Malta come into this? Well apparently, in December the seas surrounding Malta can be very rough and on this occasion the storms meant many of the delegates were seasick and meetings were accordingly cancelled. Rather than cancel the summit altogether, the Americans and Soviets sailed into the harbour at Birzebbuga, just near Marsaxlokk, on the southeast coast of Malta, and docked, continuing their negotiations there on the now docked Soviet ship Maxsim Gorkiy. It was in this normally sleepy fishing village and one of the least populated parts of the rather densely populated Maltese Islands, where Mikheil Gorbachev, the Soviet Leader at the time, and George Bush Snr officially declared the end of the Cold War.

Speaking at the end of the summit, Chairman Gorbachev stated: "The world is leaving one epoch and entering another. We are at the beginning of a long road to a lasting, peaceful era. The threat of force, mistrust, psychological and ideological struggle should all be things of the past……. I assured the President of the United States that I will never start a hot war against the USA."

And in response, President George HW Bush: "We can realise a lasting peace and transform the East-West relationship to one of enduring co-operation. That is the future that Chairman Gorbachev and I began right here in Malta."

There isn’t much in Birzebbuga if you head there, however there is a very imposing monument to the end of the cold war, depicting embracing arms and written in English, Russian and Maltese ‘End of the Cold War’. While in 1989 there would have been swarms of media and on-lookers on the shore watching with anticipation as the leaders of the two great superpowers negotiated, now it’s a run down car park with some elderly people eating their lunch and some young lovers using it as a make out site.