Governors Island

This guide to Governors Island centers on December 7, 1988, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev crossed the harbor for his final meeting with President Reagan, stepping onto an island sealed off from New York for nearly two centuries. That morning Gorbachev had told the United Nations the Soviet Union would withdraw half a million troops from Eastern Europe, and now the two leaders met inside the Commandant's 1840 mansion with President-elect George Bush looking on. You'll hear what Reagan brought as a keepsake from their first summit in Geneva. Best heard looking out toward the harbor the ferries now cross freely.