It was on this date in 1993 that a special summit began in Vancouver hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.  With the University of British Columbia as a backdrop, the rookie U.S. President, Bill Clinton, met for talks with Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin.  This was the first time the two leaders of the worlds’ major nuclear powers had met, and it came in the shadow of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In his memoirs, Mr. Mulroney revealed the story of an interesting phone call he received from former American President Richard Nixon as soon as the Vancouver summit was announced to the public.  Nixon confided to Mulroney that Clinton, and other G7 leaders, were not supporting the struggling Russian federation in these early days. “You could have an enormous influence on this,” Nixon told our PM. “It will be such a tragedy if the Russian experiment fails.  Democracy will not survive the defeat of Yeltsin.” In Vancouver, Clinton and Yeltsin met for a total of seven hours of serious talks.  The highlight of the summit was the announcement that the U.S. would be providing $1.6 billion in direct aid to Russia.  "It is the self-interest and the high duty of all the world's democracies to stand by Russia's democratic reforms in their new hour of challenge," Clinton said. "We actively support reform and reformers and you in Russia." "We are partners and future allies," Yeltsin told the press with Clinton at his side. "We immediately found common language in Vancouver." caption id="attachment_549195" align="aligncenter" width="440" U.S. President Bill Clinton, PM Brian Mulroney and Russian President Boris Yeltsin/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.