In 1993, John Brewer, the president of The New York Times Syndicate set the framework for publishing a joint column by Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the USSR, and Ranan Lurie. In the column, Gorbachev wrote his opinion about world politics (issues like the Persian Gulf War and future of Communism) and Lurie added a caricature giving a different opinion, Lurie's counterpoint. The joint column was published for some years in more than 100 newspapers worldwide, including The New York Times.