The Modern Languages Society was delighted to host Sir Christopher Mallaby to talk about Ukraine and why the Cold War never got hot. The former ambassador to France and also Germany during the falling of the Berlin Wall recounted his personal experiences of the Cold War. Sir Christopher gave an account of his evening in the US embassy in Washington during the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 and of how Khrushchev started to pummel his shoe on the table at one diplomatic meeting. Current day Russia was portrayed as a dictatorial state and Sir Christopher suggested that Russia will in fact annex the Crimea and may even seize further parts of Ukraine in order to connect Russia and Ukraine by land. It was a fascinating insight from someone who was there at some defining moments in Cold War history.
Henry Hall WFM
