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Reagan and Gorbachev would talk about religion at other summits, going deeper than using colloquial phrases. Gorbachev informed Reagan that while his wife, Raisa, was an atheist and even taught a course on atheism, he had the Bible read to him as a child by his Christian grandmother — though he refused to openly commit as to the precise effect. Reagan, however, was convinced, according to Press Secretary Larry Speakes, that "the childhood exposure … had an influence."

All of this suggested to Reagan that the leader of the Evil Empire might be a "closet Christian." He prayed for Gorbachev.

Still, Gorbachev kept his beliefs to himself, even after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 — made official by Gorbachev's resignation on Christmas Day. Gorbachev's memoirs gave no indication of his being a Christian, nor did his other writings — in clear contrast to Reagan's memoirs, which are rich with a sense of the guiding hand of Providence.

But, Gorbachev's books made it evident that he had a guiding spirituality, but not much more than that. In On My Country and the World, Gorbachev referred to homo sapiens as "God's highest creation." Yet overall the book is extremely humanistic. Immediately after the homo sapiens remark, Gorbachev wrote, "A return to age-old, spiritual, moral, life-affirming values, to a humanist and genuinely optimistic worldview is one of the decisive tasks of our era." In this work, he makes statements suggesting he believes in God, but infused his views with a lot of New Age-isms and enviro-speak.

The "green" element is especially notable. In an April 2001 interview with Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, Gorbachev said, "We need a new … environmentalization of consciousness." Such, he said, was "precisely the main task" of his aptly named Green Cross International, his odd environmental adaptation of the Red Cross.

I have always wanted to grill Gorbachev on these questions, but getting an interview with him is not only nearly impossible but, from what I have been told, extremely expensive. The former Marxist, who (inexplicably) still speaks glowingly of Vladimir Lenin, charges big bucks for an interview. I did not have enough cash to pay to play.

Michael Reagan did get this opportunity, and questioned Gorbachev about these matters. Gorbachev, relays Reagan, said only that he was not a "doubter or atheist." When Michael told him that Ronald Reagan, before summit meetings, turned to God for guidance, and then asked, "Who did you turn to?" Gorbachev opened the window a crack, replying: "I don't know who I turned to, but I had a grandmother [who] was a Christian and my grandmother used to go to church everyday and would come to the Kremlin and visit me and say, 'Mikhail I prayed for the atheists today. I prayed for you.'"

I figured that Mikhail Gorbachev would take this mystery to the grave. Then came Telegraph's blockbuster headline.

The Telegraph reported that Gorbachev, for the first time, acknowledged having a Christian faith during a surprise mid-March visit to pray at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy, where, accompanied by his daughter, Irina, the former leader of the USSR spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer, unrecognized by other worshipers. Gorbachev expressed his fondness for Francis, the 12th-century figure canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. "It was through Francis that I arrived at the Church," explained Gorbachev, "so it was important that I came to visit the tomb."

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April (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52