Peter Rhodes: How we witnessed the end of the Cold War

WHEN Donald Trump calls for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States, he is surfing on one of those occasional waves of paranoia that have swept America ever since it was first settled. From witches to flying saucers, via communists, alien abductions, Freemasons, Catholics and secret brain implants (can you feel it, just under your ear?), the US seems to need occasional panics and conspiracy theories. I can't think of any explanation for this desire to be frightened except that the US arms industry is enormous and every new panic surely sells more guns.

MIND you, as the saying goes, just because you're not paranoid it doesn't mean they're not out to get you. When Trump alleges that cops are scared to enter some parts of London, the instant denial by the Metropolitan Police is unconvincing. Fact: most British towns and cities have their share of dodgy streets. I recall the Liverpool gag about a neighbourhood so tough that the police patrolled not in pairs but in threes – and that was inside the police station. This joke is at least 50 years old.

FIRST, those little peaked hats were known as Lenin caps after the leader of the Russian revolution. Then, when the Beatles adopted them, they became Lennon caps. As Britain became a member of the EU and we all got more continental, they were marketed as Breton fishermen caps. And now, favoured by the Labour Party leader, they are being sold on eBay as Corbyn caps. You can't help noticing how many men of a certain age are now wearing them. Or wondering whether they were bought in tribute to Vladimir, John, French fishermen or Jeremy.

CLEARING out a chest of drawers yesterday I found my press pass to the conference which ended the Cold War. Malta '89. What memories.

I WAS in Malta 26 years ago this week, covering the Bush/Gorbachev "Salt Water Summit." It was a tightly controlled event and there was not a cat in hell's chance of speaking to anybody important. Each day, 12 of the 2,000 journalists covering the event were taken to the ship where the summit took place to be given an official briefing on the day's talks. The 12 would then write their reports which would be handed out to the other 1,988 hacks. Malta '89 was a scoop-free zone. Or would have been had I not been staying in the only one-star hotel in the Thomson holiday brochure. All the other guests were Russian reporters and on the third night they had a special guest. I found Gennadi Gerasimov, Gorbachev's official Kremlin spokesman, alone in the hotel's tiny bar, hunched over a half of lager. I was the sole representative of the Free World's media and he was happy to chat. Gerasimov was a great performer, declaring with a theatrical wave of his Stella: "At last we have buried the Cold War, deep in the deepest part of the Mediterranean. Right at the bottom of the sea where it will stay from here to eternity."

THE point of this stroll down memory lane? It is to recall that way back in 1989 as the Cold War was buried we knew what would come next. I attended a succession of Whitehall briefings, where we were told to expect the break-up of the Soviet Union, conflict in the Baltic states and, above all, a rise in militant Islam. Nothing that followed should have come as a surprise.