Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.
Two historic world leaders credited with roles in bringing an end to the Cold War will meet in Las Vegas next month as spokesmen for a business venture that has its roots in Nevada.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former U.S. President George H.W. Bush will be the central figures in a series of appearances in Las Vegas on behalf of the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation, a venture incorporated by Tom Tait, the former director of the Nevada Commission on Tourism.
Gorbachev's two-day visit to Las Vegas will include a public appearance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
University officials said today that Gorbachev has accepted an invitation to speak March 23 as part of the Marjorie Barrick Lecture Series. Details of where the speech will be and obtaining tickets will be announced later.
"We are very excited that former President Gorbachev will be speaking at UNLV as part of the Barrick Lecture Series," UNLV President Carol C. Harter said today. "We have been fortunate to welcome many world leaders to our campus over the years. Having the former president of the USSR and the 1990 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a man widely credited with helping end the Cold War, is a wonderful and rare opportunity for the university and for the Las Vegans who will hear him speak."
Tait, currently a vice president at Lake Las Vegas, incorporated the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation after discovering that dozens of Russia's cultural giants -- composers Peter Tchaikovsky and Sergey Rachmaninov, authors Anton Chekhov and Boris Pasternak and artists Marc Chagall and Andrei Sokolov among them -- were born, lived near or performed in cities along a 700-kilometer highway linking Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Tait assembled a board of directors that includes former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller, Derrick Crandall, founder of the American Scenic Byways program, and executives of the National Geographic Society and American Express Corp.
Board members explained to Russian authorities how the designation of a scenic highway is an important step toward developing a tourism marketing strategy for the region along the road designated as Highway 10.
In the United States, the designations of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Lewis and Clark Trail and Route 66 have helped bring millions of dollars in tourism revenue to their respective regions.
Tait, who helped develop scenic routes in Nevada, and his board appealed to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for funding, and to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin for support.
Tait explained that the international announcement of the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation plan is occurring in Las Vegas because the foundation was incorporated in Nevada and board leaders are Las Vegas residents.
He said another board member operates Dertour, Germany's, largest travel agency, and would market the project to Europeans from there.
Gorbachev, who has popular appeal with the West and has championed economic development with capitalist ideals, was enlisted to support the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation. The former Soviet leader embraced the concept and met with board members late last year to begin ironing out details.
Gorbachev, who had scheduled an East Coast appearance in March, accepted an invitation to Las Vegas and will be here March 22-23.
Bush, a close friend of Crandall's and the president who founded the Scenic Highway Program in the United States, also accepted an invitation to come to Las Vegas for the Russian Heritage event and will meet with Gorbachev at Lake Las Vegas. Both are scheduled to appear at a news conference announcing the Russian Heritage Highway concept.
Gorbachev also is expected to be the guest of honor at a fund-raising reception for the foundation.
In addition to the fund-raising and press conference events on behalf of the foundation and his appearance at UNLV, Gorbachev is scheduled to meet with the organization's board to begin working on details of the highway project.
A group of 25 chief executives of top recreation companies from around the world had planned to meet later in the week at Lake Las Vegas as part of a "Recreation Roundtable." That conference is being moved up so that those executives can meet with Gorbachev.
Also during his stay, Gorbachev may be taken on a scenic air tour of the Grand Canyon.
Gorbachev last met with Bush in Moscow in September. The former Soviet leader was critical of Bush's son, President George W. Bush, a month later when he said the president had "a hidden agenda" when the United States waged war in Iraq in early 2003.
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