The Adventures of Steve Jobs in the Soviet Union

In the summer of 1985, a young commercial attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow met with two representatives from Apple who were visiting the Soviet Union. Mike Merin, the attaché, recalls that one was a 'mature man' and the other was 'a young, skinny, energetic, and impatient man.' In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Mike Merin said, 'The more mature man gave me his business card which stated he was Apple's general counsel, and I thought he must have an important responsibility. But the second person did not mention his position, and I didn’t pay much attention.' Mike Merin says they explained their plan to establish an Apple computer manufacturing plant in the Soviet Union. He warned them that such a plan would violate many U.S. trade regulations aimed at preventing America's enemies from accessing sensitive and advanced technologies. The young man did not like hearing this. Mike Merin recounts, 'He stood up and started shouting. He said to me, who are you? You are just a clerk and don’t understand anything.' Then the mature man intervened and tried to calm his colleague down. Mike Merin, who was 25 at the time, laughs while recalling these memories coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Apple's founding. That evening, he invited the two Apple representatives to dinner at a Georgian restaurant in Moscow, famous for its delicious meat dishes. It was there that he realized the young, skinny man he had overlooked was one of the two genius founders of Apple, apparently a vegetarian. Mike Merin adds, 'At that moment, I realized that this young man was the famous Steve Jobs.' This meeting took place during Steve Jobs' first and only trip to the Soviet Union. Since the death of the Apple founder in 2011, new information and evidence about his trip to the Soviet Union right after Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist leader of that country, came to power have emerged. Five other points and memories from Steve Jobs' trip to the Soviet Union: KGB or CIA? According to U.S. security documents that are made public under the Freedom of Information Act after a specified period, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Steve Jobs' activities. In a conversation with Defense Department officials in 1988, Steve Jobs mentioned that during his trip to Moscow, he met with an international lawyer who either worked for the KGB or the CIA. Although he did not have precise evidence about this person's affiliation or cooperation with these intelligence organizations. Steve Jobs also added that he believed the person who apparently came to fix a television before he wanted to enter his hotel room was likely one of the agents monitoring him in Moscow. The Maccabean Revolution, written by Walter Isaacson, the official biographer of Steve Jobs, published in 2011, states that before traveling to Moscow, Steve Jobs attended a trade show in Paris. George Bush, who was then the Vice President of the United States, encouraged Steve Jobs in a meeting to take computers to the Soviet Union to 'fuel the revolution from below in that country.' Mike Merin, the commercial attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, confirms that during their meeting in 1985, Steve Jobs recounted his conversation with George Bush. The Bicycle Mindset: During his trip to Moscow, Steve Jobs gave a lecture to computer science students. It is unclear whether the full text of this lecture was recorded. However, in 2011, Viktor Zhakharev, a prominent computer scientist and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences who attended Steve Jobs' lecture, published parts of it. One cannot be entirely sure of this Russian scientist's translation of Steve Jobs' speech, but in part of the material he published, Steve Jobs used his usual metaphor of the impact of the bicycle on human progress, stating that when a person rides a bicycle, they are much more efficient. Those familiar with Steve Jobs' speeches and thought process know that he always used similar metaphors, and at the founding of Apple on April 1, 1976, he stated, 'The computer is the bicycle of our minds.' According to Walter Isaacson, when he was in Moscow, Steve Jobs insisted on discussing Leon Trotsky, the Bolshevik leader who was labeled a 'enemy of the people' during Stalin's era and went into exile to escape repression. Apparently, a KGB agent who accompanied Steve Jobs during his stay in Moscow tried to convince him and told Steve Jobs, 'It’s not necessary to talk more about Trotsky. Our historians have thoroughly examined the events of that time and his actions, and we believe he was not a great man.' According to Steve Jobs' biographer, the Apple founder attended the Fourth of July Independence Day celebration held at the U.S. Embassy. However, Mike Merin, the commercial attaché, states that the Soviet government did not allow Steve Jobs and other American business executives to attend a similar event held at the U.S. Ambassador's villa. Mike Merin said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 'Preventing these individuals from attending the event was a significant issue. I believe Soviet officials wanted to be overly strict and show us that they could obstruct our plans whenever they wanted.'