Venue: "From Yalta To Malta", and Back
The meetings took place on board the Soviet cruise ship SS Maxim Gorkiy, anchored off the coast of Marsaxlokk Harbour in the Mediterranean island of Malta. President Bush attended the summit on board the USS Belknap. Stormy weather and choppy seas resulted in some meetings being cancelled or rescheduled, and gave rise to the moniker the "Seasick Summit" among international media.
The idea of a summit in the open sea is said to have been inspired largely by President Bush's fascination with World War II President Franklin D. Roosevelt's habit of meeting foreign leaders on board naval vessels. The choice of Malta as a venue was the subject of considerable pre-summit haggling between the two superpowers. According to Condoleezza Rice:
"... it took a long time to get it arranged, finding a place, a place that would not be ceremonial, a place where you didn't have to do a lot of other bilaterals. And fortunately - or unfortunately - they chose Malta, which turned out to be a really horrible place to be in December. Although the Maltese were wonderful, the weather was really bad."
The choice of venue was also highly symbolic. The Maltese Islands are strategically located at the geographic centre of the Mediterranean Sea, where east meets west and north meets south. Consequently, Malta has a long history of domination by foreign powers. It served as a British naval base during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and suffered massive destruction during World War II. Malta declared its neutrality between the two superpowers in 1980, following the closure of British military bases and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Regional Headquarters (CINCAFMED), previously located on Malta. Neutrality is entrenched in the Constitution of Malta, which provides as follows, at section 1(3):
"Malta is a neutral state actively pursuing peace, security and social progress among all nations by adhering to a policy of non-alignment and refusing to participate in any military alliance."
On February 2, 1945, as the War in Europe drew to a close, Malta was the venue for the Malta Conference, an equally significant meeting between US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill prior to their Yalta meeting with Joseph Stalin. The Malta Summit of 1989 signalled a reversal of many of the decisions taken at the 1945 Yalta Conference.
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