Eduard Shevardnadze, an ex-president of Georgia, died on Monday at the age of 86 after a long struggle with illness, his personal assistant told Reuters. As foreign minister under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, Shevardnadze oversaw the thaw in relations with the West before the Berlin Wall came down and the communist Soviet Union was dismantled. Shevardnadze also played a vital role in ending the Cold War as Soviet foreign minister, went on to lead his native Georgia in the stormy early years after independence.
