An Interview With Gorbachev, And Why I Hate Parties

I once got the opportunity to meet and interview one of my all-time heroes, Mikhail Gorbachev.

It was around 1993, a few years after he’d received the Nobel Peace Prize, and I was still an undergraduate at Oxford, trying to prove myself as a journalist on the student paper. One evening, the press release came through on the fax machine - Gorbachev was coming to speak in Oxford next week - and I knew this was my big chance for a serious interview.

I’d just recently worked out that getting interviews in Oxford was easier than I’d imagined, and I was already pestering every poor A to C-list celebrity who was unfortunate enough to visit the city. I just called their PR team and asked to meet them, and they inexplicably said yes and proposed a time to meet in the Randolph lobby.

In fact, I was on a bit of a roll. A chubby George Best dressed in an improbably pink shell suit. A very witty and kind Eddie Izzard. The dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah, over tea and biscuits served by his mum at his home in East Ham. And even Bob Hawke, the former Australian prime minister and Rhodes scholar, famously held the world record in the 1950’s for drinking a yard of ale (11 seconds).

Gorbachev, I felt, would cement my reputation as a serious interviewer.

I just needed to call up the number on the fax sheet in my hand before anyone else got the same idea, and ask politely. Gorby would be all mine.

As I called the number, I didn’t recognize the name or organization on the fax - Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, of the Oxford University L'Chaim Society. This was still five years before Google was founded, so I was not aware that Boteach, named subsequently by the Washington Post as the most famous rabbi in America, had been sent from America and funded as an emissary to Oxford to raise the profile of the Chabad Jewish community, and had founded the L’Chaim Society in 1989. I didn’t know any of this, and in those days if you didn’t know something, you just dialed and blagged it:

“Hi, is this Rabbi Shmuley Boteach? This is James Chadwick, from the Oxford Student. I understand the L’Chaim Society is bringing Gorbachev to speak next week. I’d love to interview him.”

Long silence.

“Hello?”

Another long silence.

“Tell me, Mr Chadwick, why should we let you interview one of the greatest political figures of the twentieth century? What are your motivations for this interview? What relevant experience or geopolitical insight do you bring that qualifies you for this honor?”

I explained about Eddie Izzard and George Best, wisely omitting the part about the pink shell suit.

“Mr Chadwick, I do not know these people. Do you even know what the L’Chaim Society is, and what we stand for? Do you know what is happening in Israel? Have you done any research into us, Mr Chadwick?”

Another long silence, this time mine.

“Look, why don’t you come over, and we will discuss this further? Come to my house this evening, we are having a little party. It’s very informal. You can meet some of our student community and we can see where it goes. See you at 7.”

The call ended, and my bowels churned a little. F**k. This was a big problem. I desperately wanted to meet Gorby, and my future career might depend on it, but there was now a monstrous obstacle I would need to tackle first.

My deepest, darkest nemesis. A party.

I’ve always hated parties. I think I’m generally a sociable and chatty person in regular life, but for whatever reason parties freak me out. All my physical and mental faculties turn to undependable blancmange between the moment I step into a party and stumble out.

Usually, I RSVP yes and then never get off my own sofa and am a no-show. Still, on the disastrous occasions that I turn up, I typically seek out the dullest and most isolated person in the room and then monopolize them until even they find an excuse to leave early.

I’m like a colon cleanse for party hosts. 

But this was for Gorby. Tonight, I needed to step up and bring my A-game. So a few hours later I was cycling through the cold, dark rain towards the Rabbi’s house, dangerously hungry and thirsty for Dutch Courage.

I chained my bike in the rain and knocked on the door, and it was opened by a towering, elegant American girl in a black cocktail dress and pearls. Presumably, they were her informal pearls. “Come in, you’re a little late; we’re just getting started,” she said. My only waterproof jacket was a giant Russian army surplus coat, which she reluctantly took and hung on a tiny hanger, before leading me into the living room.

Things had started badly and then got precipitously worse. When it comes to parties, for me, size does matter. As Jordan said in The Great Gatsby, “I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties, there isn’t any privacy.” I stepped into a living room with a dozen preppy and intense kids, trained in the dark arts of professional mingling, and there was nowhere to hide for the next hour.

It felt like being locked in the green room before the National Debate Club or Spelling Bee televised finals. One by one, they rotated in to start a conversation with me, quickly established my profound ignorance of Middle Eastern politics, and then rotated out effortlessly. They just kept coming. I was like a new lamp-post, that every dog in the park had to piss on just a little.

Fortunately, there was alcohol, and someone kindly filled our wine glasses. Or at least, someone kept filling up my glass. The first rule of being a British student is never to refuse free alcohol, but these American kids clearly hadn’t got the memo. More fool them.

After an hour as a lamp-post, we all moved into the dining room for a sit-down Shabbat dinner, and I was seated opposite the Rabbi. Now, the second rule of being a British student is to consume as much free food as possible when presented with the opportunity, and I took this rule very seriously. I surveyed the feast of generous portions and set about gorging myself efficiently and comprehensively.

Conveniently, I had also been seated in front of the only alcohol on the table, a full bottle of cheap vodka, so I naturally began to apply the first rule once more. Winter was coming and I needed to store more calories. I decided to focus on the food and drink tasks first, and then move on to buttering up the Rabbi. 

This party was all right. I was doing well. I was even, dare I admit it, enjoying myself.

And then the speeches started.

Now, I wasn’t expecting this. The Rabbi said a few words about the significance of Shabbat, and possibly spoke some Hebrew, and then nominated one of the preppiest kids to ‘say a few words’. Then this kid just stood up, thanked Rabbi Boteach, launched into one of the most beautiful, sincere, witty, profound meditations on the meaning of love, raised a glass to propose a loud ‘L’Chaim’ toast, and then sat down.

What just happened? How did he just do that off the cuff, I wondered, as I gave myself an extra little ‘L’Chaim’ with the cheap vodka. Can all American kids do this? Very impressive.

Next, he called up the statuesque girl in the pearls. OK, we’re doing this again. She was even better! She totally nailed her meandering meditation on peace. Incredible. “L’Chaim!”

Then, again and again, moving around the table, all these kids totally killed their speeches. I still remember they had this great technique where they started with a sweet and touching observation. “You know, Rabbi, the other day I was walking to my lecture, and I noticed two butterflies, dancing in the rose bush, as colorful and happy as I’ve ever seen.” Then they’d somehow connect it all up to peace in the Middle East, and we’d all shout, “L’Chaim!”

God this was fun.

“James, why don’t you share some words?”

That’s funny, I thought, one of them is also called James. This should be a good one. I looked around. Why was everyone looking at me? Why was the Rabbi smiling at me?

Oh god.

Looking back now, thirty years later, I still can’t believe I hadn’t worked out that my turn was coming. I mean, I knew I was being checked out for the Gorbachev interview. Almost everyone else had spoken. I ate my share of their food and drink at their table.

Ok, I had drunk considerably more than my share of the wine and vodka, and I suspect that did play a factor in what happened next.

I remember rising to my feet and looking everyone earnestly in the eyes, long before I had worked out what to say. In fact, I’m not sure I ever consciously worked out what I was planning to say.

Unlike the American kids, I had no experience of talking in public. I had never been invited randomly to stand up and start riffing on butterflies and my dreams for a better world. At school in England, we essentially sat alphabetically and wrote essays for twelve years, between rolling about in the mud, singing hymns, and exploding test tubes.

At no point were we encouraged to speak, let alone stand up and string them together into sentences. All I could think of was what my Dad had once told me about public speaking: Start with a good joke. Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em what you told ‘em. Sit down.

And so that’s what I did.

“Thank you, Rabbi Boteach. Friends, I am going to tell you a joke. How do we know that Jesus Christ was Jewish?”

Anybody? Nobody?

“Because he lived at home till he was thirty, his mom thought he was the son of god, and he thought his mom was a virgin. That is the joke I have told you. Thank you.”

I sat down uneasily. Now, in the movies, this is the part where there