Mitchell Reports   |  February 28, 2013

Mourning the loss of a gifted, world-renowned pianist

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell remarks on the passing of Van Cliburn, who died Wednesday at age 78.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> finally, there is only one museum in one musician playing a key diplomatic role in the cold war . not once but twice. that's the extraordinary legacy as well as the musical legacy of the piano prodigy van cliburn . he took moscow by storm in 1958 . this only months after the russians had beaten the pants off of america launching sputnik, the first satellite in to space. when he won the piano competition, it was a huge american morale . he beat them at their own game, playing rush why's most famous composer and returned home, given a ticker tape parade up broadway. just think of it. and then three decades later, the reclusive pianist played at the white house for the last soviet leader and his wife. at their first state dinner at the white house . the summit had not been going well but he had an answer. he performed one of the famous folk songs . i was there covering it all for nbc news. and you could feel the ice of the cold war melting at that very moment. all orchestrated, of course, by nancy reagan and knew how to do these things. they responded and the rest as they say is history. van cliburn died after a long struggle with bone cancer . he was 78. i'm phyllis, and