Doing the satellite bridge to the Soviet Union at the US Festival led me to devote more than a million dollars over the next ten years to U.S./USSR peace efforts. The idea was personal diplomacy. I tried to get normal people, not officials, from each country to meet each other.
In 1988, on July 4, I sponsored the first big stadium concert in the USSR, just outside Moscow, with major Soviet and U.S. groups on the stage. The U.S. groups included the Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Santana, and Bonnie Raitt. I found a cheap $25 guitar at a store in Russia, and got all the groups to sign it. I still have it. That concert was at the end of a great peace march there.
For doing things like the first space bridges between the US Festival and the USSR and this concert, I became pretty well known in the USSR. But you know what? The U.S. press didn't care one whit. There was almost no coverage.
In 1990 I sponsored two-week trips for 240 regular people—teachers, for instance—to tour the U.S. and stay in the homes of Rotary Club members here.
So I had done the first three space bridges in the Soviet Union. Somewhere around this time, maybe 1989, ABC put on a national TV show purporting to be the first space bridge ever. I actually paid for the connections of this hookup, but ABC never even mentioned my name and took credit for being first. Actually, they were fourth!