Statement from Governor Murphy on the Passing of Mikhail Gorbachev

 "Mikhail Gorbachev was a rare leader who understood that democratic and economic progress cannot be stopped even if it means the eventual end of one’s own power. I was honored to know him, introduced through mutual friends former President George H.W. Bush and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, at the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was a dedicated statesman who recognized that his actions, in partnership with President Ronald Reagan, moved the world away from the threat of nuclear annihilation and toward greater openness, peace, and understanding. His legacy is, indeed, a complex one, but one which history will honor for his actions that moved Russia, for a time, toward a free and open democracy. It is a legacy which I sincerely hope lives in his home country. Tammy and I send our thoughts out to his daughter Irina, and her family, at this time."