Suzanne Massie, ‘Reagan’s Window on the Soviet Union,’ Dies at 94

Suzanne Massie, who was neither an academic Russia expert nor a diplomat, but who in some 20 visits to the White House in the 1980s coached President Ronald Reagan ahead of his high-wire summitry with the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, died on Sunday in Harrodsburg, Ky. She was 94.

Her death, in hospice care, was confirmed by her family. She had recently moved from her longtime home in Blue Hill, Maine, to an assisted living community in Danville, Ky. to be near a daughter.

An American-born author of books about Russian culture who spoke the language, Ms. Massie held a romantic view of what she called the Russian “soul,” and she formed a bond with a president who liked to understand and communicate complex issues through anecdotes about average people.

At their first meeting, in January 1984, Mr. Reagan was captivated by the lively Ms. Massie, who told Russian jokes and spoke of the spiritualism of the long-suffering Russian people.

“How much do they believe in communism over there?” Mr. Reagan asked her, according to the historian Michael R. Beschloss in his book “Presidential Courage” (2007), a series of portraits of U.S. presidents.

Their scheduled five-minute meeting in the Oval Office ran to nearly an hour. And Mr. Reagan invited her back, again and again.