On August 1, 1991, the US President George H. W. Bush was on his way from Moscow to visit Kyiv. He planned to stop at several places and deliver a keynote speech in support of a new union treaty that would reformat the USSR into a confederation of sovereign states.
During the flight on the presidential plane, final edits were made to the speech that Bush was to deliver to the Verkhovna Rada of the then Ukrainian SSR. All articles “the” before Ukraine were removed from the text so as not to emphasize the republicʼs dependent status within the USSR. Bush was sure that Moscow would not pay attention to such grammatical nuances. But he personally added a phrase warning Ukrainians against "suicidal nationalism".
Bush on the presidential plane during a visit to Moscow, from where he then flew to Kyiv, July 29, 1991.
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It was thanks to this speech, which was supposed to reassure other Soviet republics, that the visit became a resonant event. Bush not only disappointed many Ukrainians, including in the United States. He was criticized by the Western press and even many Republican allies.
Bush and his entourage explained for many years that they were actually warning Ukrainians “not to do anything stupid that could lead to a violent confrontation”.
However, this speech became an example of how the White House is not always right about the real state of affairs in the world. It is still called one of the worst speeches ever delivered by an American high-ranking official. And it went down in history as “chicken Kyiv” or “chicken Kyivʼs speech” — that is how American journalist William Safire called it in his column in The New York Times in August 1991.
The collapse of communism
In the late 1980s, pro-Kremlin regimes began to fall one after another in Central and Eastern Europe. The symbolic collapse of communism was the fall in 1989 of the Berlin Wall, which had divided Germany into East and West for almost 30 years.
GDR soldiers during the destruction of the wall by civilians, 1989.
The USSR was also plunging into a deep economic, social and political crisis and was on the verge of collapse. The “parade of sovereignty” began in the Soviet republics. The then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was already ready to turn a blind eye to the loss of satellites from the socialist countries. But he tried his best to preserve the Soviet Union. Anti-government protests in the Caucasus were suppressed by troops. But Lithuania and other Baltic republics could not be held even with the help of tanks.
Similar trends were brewing in the second largest republic, the Ukrainian SSR. In March 1990, in the first fairly free parliamentary elections under the communist regime, national-democratic candidates won almost a quarter of the seats. In July, the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR adopted the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine. In October, the first Ukrainian Maidan took place — the student Revolution on Granite.
Participants of a rally in Kyiv walk to the Verkhovna Rada along Kirov Street (now Hrushevsky Street), September 30, 1990. Participants in a rally in Kyiv near the Republican Stadium (now the NSC "Olympic"), September 30, 1990.
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Gorbachev understood that the USSR would not survive the loss of Ukraine, so he agreed to reformat the empire into a confederation built on the principles of republican sovereignty. But the Kremlin was not going to give up the role of the leadership center until the last moment.
In 1991, during discussions of a new union treaty in the Moscow region state residence of Novo-Ogaryovo, Gorbachev decided to make a move. He invited the leaders of the autonomies, including Crimea. According to his plan, they were to dilute the republican supporters of broader self-government and decentralization. But when this plan failed, he resorted to another trick.
World leaders were supposed to "calm down" Ukraine
From the beginning of his rule in 1985, Gorbachev gained a reputation in the West as a progressive reformer. In international relations, he launched a “policy of détente”: he agreed on arms reductions, withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan, and promised not to interfere in the affairs of the former socialist countries in Europe.
His meeting with American President George Bush Sr. in early December 1989 was called the end of the Cold War in the press. In 1990, he scored points in the eyes of the West with democratic reforms: he abolished the leading role of the Communist Party and created a new, highest position in the state — the president, which, however, he took up in violation of the law. After all, in October 1990, Gorbachev even received the Nobel Peace Prize.
It would seem that everything was going well, the issue of Ukrainian independence was not on the agenda in the West. In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stated that she could open an embassy in Kyiv with the same success as in San Francisco.
In July 1991, Gorbachev invited the leader of the united Germany, Helmut Kohl, to Kyiv to discuss new Soviet-German relations. In this way, he wanted to emphasize that Ukraine remained an integral part of the USSR. However, the motorcade with official delegations had to bypass a demonstration of thousands in Kyiv against the signing of the union treaty.
Demonstration in Kyiv during Kohlʼs visit, July 6, 1991.
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But Gorbachevʼs main trump card was to be American President George Bush Sr. On the evening of July 29, 1991, Bush arrived in Moscow with his wife and spent the next two days talking a lot with Gorbachev. These were both official meetings and private conversations at Gorbachevʼs cottage near Moscow, where the US leader was staying.
The Soviet "president" assured his American colleague that he was ready to let go of the Baltic countries, but Ukraine was ready to voluntarily remain in the new union. He said that the relevant agreement had already been agreed upon, and the Ukrainians could not wait to sign it.
Gorbachev and his wife are greeted by the Bushes in Moscow, July 30, 1991.
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The White House feared the most was a repeat of the Yugoslavia scenario, but now with nuclear weapons. So before flying to Kyiv, Bush assured Gorbachev that he would “not tolerate any support for separatism”. He kept his promise, making corrections to his speech during the flight.
“I believed that the key role [in the reformed Union] would be played by a politically strong Gorbachev and an effectively functioning central apparatus,” Bush later wrote in his memoirs.
An unexpected meeting in Kyiv and its consequences
Bush was greeted by crowds of people at “Boryspil” Airport and on the streets of Kyiv. There were many posters in Ukrainian and English. However, the inscriptions on them were not in support of the new union treaty, as the Kremlin assured, but quite the opposite.
Posters that greeted Bush during his visit to Kyiv on August 1, 1991.
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On the way from “Boryspil”, a worried Bush unexpectedly turned to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR, Leonid Kravchuk, who was accompanying him. He asked to review the text of his speech just in case.
Kravchuk was stunned. None of the leaders who had come from Moscow had ever asked him to do so before. He made a few minor remarks; it was too late to make any serious corrections. And Bush was so impressed by such a meeting that he decided to violate the planned protocol and went out to greet the crowd.
Footage from Bushʼs visit to Kyiv on August 1, 1991.
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When the American president stood at the podium in the Verkhovna Rada, he was greeted with a standing ovation. He thanked for the warm welcome, quoted Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Taras Shevchenko. He recalled the eternal desire of Ukrainians for freedom.
And then Bush began to praise Gorbachev as a strong leader, noting that choosing between the Kremlin leader and the supporters of independence was “the wrong choice”. And finally he came to the same correction in the speech: “Freedom is not the same as independence.
Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace distant tyranny with local despotism. They will not help those who promote suicidal nationalism based on ethnic hatred”. At the end of the speech, there was a disapproving rumble in the hall, now mostly conservative communists applauded.
Within a few days, Bushʼs seemingly routine visit and speech in Kyiv had drawn world attention to Ukraine. Within a few weeks, the White Houseʼs miscalculations became even more obvious. In Moscow, putschists attempted to overthrow the "strong leader" Gorbachev.
Ukraine declared its Act of Independence, and by the end of the year the USSR had finally collapsed. In May 1992, Bush hosted Ukrainian President Kravchuk at the White House.
Bush receives Kravchuk at the White House, May 6, 1992.
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During the 1992 presidential race, Bushʼs opponents repeatedly cited his Kyiv speech, among other accusations. He was trolled at public events by parodists in chicken costumes. Ultimately, Bush lost the election to Democrat Bill Clinton.