SL native Hopkins was in the rooms where things happened

I just saw a preview of a new movie coming out in mid-August, “The Brink of War.” It tells the story of the 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, to negotiate a treaty banning nuclear weapons.

It reminds me of how crucial one often anonymous person is in these negotiations — the interpreter. This person not only translates different languages, but is entrusted to understand and accurately relay the tiniest nuances of different cultures. The slightest misunderstanding could be catastrophic to world peace.

Into that crucial role stepped a Storm Lake native, Dr. William Hopkins. All during the Cold War of the 1980s, when it came to the most important international affairs, he was often in the room where it happened.

Bill grew up in Storm Lake on Seneca Street, two blocks from where he graduated from the old Storm Lake High School on Cayuga Street in 1961. He went on to earn his doctorate in Slavic language and literature in 1977 at Indiana University with fluency in Russian language and culture.

After that Bill had a 50-year career with the State Department in Washington and around the world, including a post for several years at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. He rose to become one of President Reagan’s regular interpreters during various Cold War summits around the world. He would have had the highest security clearance.

While Bill was not the translator for the Reykjavik summit in the movie, he was involved in many other top level conferences, including Geneva, Washington and Moscow.

“Look at any photo of a U.S.-Soviet or U.S.-Russian summit from the early 1980s through the early 2000s, and you will likely find Bill in the picture,” said Ambassador Eric Rubin, president of the American Foreign Service Association. “Every bit of progress and every step forward our country and our allies made in ending the Cold War and the post-World War II division of Europe required hours of painstaking diplomatic negotiations, from the level of heads of state down to the working levels of both countries.

“Bill was in the middle of it all, smoothing misunderstandings and conveying weighty concepts of war and peace that ultimately determined the fate of the planet. His was a life of service and skill, and also a life of friendship and deep loyalty to his country,” Rubin told political columnist and White House correspondent John Gizzi.

Despite his worldwide travels, Bill never abandoned his roots. In 1986 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Buena Vista University, and in 1990 he was Grand Marshal of the Star Spangled Spectacular. He was the lead story on the first front page of The Storm Lake Times on June 29, 1990.

He and the eldest Cullen sibling, Tom, were friends, and Bill’s brother Pat and I were classmates and friends too. Bill wrote us several times over the years to find out how things were going back in his old hometown.

Bill passed away on Dec. 29, 2022 at the age of 80 at his home in Washington, D.C. What an interesting life he lived.