We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free. ~Ronald Reagan

The ranch was also the site of a historic visit by Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev in 1992. Together Reagan and Gorbachev dismantled the regime that Reagan once called the "Evil Empire." Yet it was Reagan’s intention to destroy communism and Gorbachev’s intention to save it. Remarkably, these two world leaders, while struggling through the last years of the Cold War, developed a friendship based on mutual respect.

By the time Gorbachev visited, the Soviet empire was no more. And so the two men talked about horses, home improvement, and real state prices. Reagan drove Gorbachev around the ranch in his jeep, while Nancy Reagan showed her hospitality by serving homemade cookies. Reagan presented Gorbachev with a cowboy hat, and Gorbachev reciprocated by giving the Reagans a book of Russian proverbs. When the two leaders said goodbye, they were fully conscious of having launched their two nations—and the world—into a new era.

Margaret Thatcher, whom Reagan once humorously called "the other woman in my life," showed up to discuss Cold War strategy and the fate of conservatism in Britain and America. And Queen Elizabeth was not deterred by a driving rain or by the waterlogged paths that blocked access to the ranch; she gamely boarded a four-wheel drive vehicle and was transported to the main house to spend time with the Reagans.

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