GETTING TO KNOW THE ENEMY 273Another interesting phenomenon was the joint broadcasting of
American and Soviet TV shows with live audience participation.
These so-called ‘telebridges’ had started in 1982 in a patchy fashion –
the Kremlin would not allow them to be aired on the Moscow channel.
True reciprocity was at last introduced in 1986, and the American
public could see and hear that Russians were not automatons but
people like rather themselves with ordinary emotions and aspirations.
Soviet audiences, as they watched the American adverts, discovered a
world of consumer goods that entranced them.^97
The USSR’s connections with the outside world were expanded
after 23 July 1987, when the Politburo approved a project to update the
USSR’s automatic telephone system.^98 The system of booking a time to
phone from a special booth in the big cities was to be ended. The Min-
istry of Communications intended to extend automatic connectivity to
‘the socialist countries’ within a year and to enable Moscow residents
to phone any country in the world before 1992. While acknowledging
the ‘whole complexity of the given problem’, Shevardnadze predicted
that international public opinion would welcome the news. Gromyko
contended that foreign intelligence services would exploit the reform
for their own nefarious purposes. Gorbachëv shrugged off his advice
and the Politburo agreed with him.^99 An efficient ‘hot line’ had existed
between President and General Secretary since the Cuban missile
crisis of 1962. For the first time it would become possible for millions
of private Soviet citizens to dial up Western countries on the spur of
the moment.^100 The quarantine of communications started to be lifted.
The process was far from complete, but nobody could deny that
remarkable changes had occurred since 1985.