He is also a supporter of Donald Trump and believes Friday’s summit between the US President and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will lead to peace in Ukraine.
Yet he is baffled by those who want Trump to fail on Friday, given what is at stake.
Porcaro, 77, says the city of Anchorage, with a population of 290,000, has been “buzzing” and that everyone has been talking about the meeting. He says the US Secret Service has been on the scene looking at rooftops and checking out its streets.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the event was “a listening exercise for the US President.”
“He is right to do so, so as not to give Putin leverage,” O’Hanlon said. “If the summit is built up, and only Putin is in a position to make concessions, that increases the risk that Trump would give away the store. Thankfully, Trump seems to have no such intention.”
“Putin has already won, especially given the one-on-one segment of the meeting,” Laura Holgate, a former US Ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, tells The i Paper.
She adds: “The audiences that matter to Putin are Trump himself, the Russian elite, and public opinion. Putin has proven a master manipulator of both, and whatever the reality of what happens, especially since there will be no witnesses, the outcome will be spun by the Kremlin to support their narrative.”
A wall decorated with political messages in Anchorage (Photo: Jae C. Hong/AP)But experts say the unique role Alaska has played in US-Russian relations over many decades actually makes it perfect. It also means a shorter flight time for both leaders.
During World War II, when the Soviet Union was an ally, the US provided billions of dollars of military equipment through Alaska under the so-called Lend-Lease programme to help Putin in his fight against Nazi Germany. The equipment was flown from airfields in Alaska and Canada to Siberia.
During Moscow’s period of “perestroika”, or openness, some Americans tried to reciprocate.
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Even today, members of indigenous communities can travel without the need for a visa from Alaska to Siberia. There is still cooperation between the US Coastguard and their Russian counterparts.
“So when it was announced [the summit was being held in Alaska], I wasn’t really surprised at all. If Trump was going to host Putin in the US, and if he wasn’t going to do so at the White House or at Camp David, it made perfect sense it would be in Alaska.”
Boylan points out that over the years, Alaska has hosted plenty of high-level meetings – one in 1971 when President Richard Nixon met Emperor Hirohito, on what was the first time he had travelled outside Japan, and in 1984 when Ronald Reagan spoke to Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks.
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