The Big Event

The Russians Are Coming

The company made its mark in June 1990, when Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev visited Minnesota, and the success made Ridgeway a public figure in his own right.

With just two weeks’ notice, the Soviets had shocked (and peeved) the U.S. State Department with an announcement that Gorbachev would follow up his long-planned summit meeting with President George Bush in Washington, D.C., by making a “personal” visit to California, stopping along the way to accept an invitation from Governor Rudy Perpich to visit Minnesota.

Ridgeway, who Perpich had recruited for the host committee, confronted the governor up front with a stark watch-what-you-wish-for reality: “The whole world will watch this event,” he told Perpich. “After the next 15 days, you will either be a national hero or a national laughingstock.” Logistical details, he predicted, would determine which.

Perpich put him in charge of those.

Awkwardness was averted when the cash-strapped Soviets expressed an interest in buying American-made items to bring home, particularly American blue jeans. Ridgeway introduced a van full of KGB agents to the American tradition of the garage sale. When the Aeroflot charter finally left for California, it was laden with American clothes, bicycles, toys, and even furniture.

Ridgeway knew that only a seasoned team could balance the competing demands of time, security, transportation, and media coverage that would accompany the Gorbachev visit. He began holding daily meetings with 20 experienced hands; within a week, almost 80 people with White House–level experience had flocked to Minnesota to work on the project.

That they came so readily is evidence of “Paul’s ability to pull together the right people,” says Debbie Estes, who also worked advance for the Carter White House and today is director of event marketing at Richfield-based Best Buy. “But this was different. This was the president of Russia. This was working with the KGB. We all wanted to be part of that.”

Ridgeway also spent considerable effort courting the Soviets prior to their arrival in Minnesota. “They want to know that you know what you are doing. But they all want to know that you care,” he says.