Word: bonneli
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...warm welcome for a troubled friend. In the past few years, countless U.S. diplomats and politicians have flown to Bonn in search of West German support for everything from shoring up the dollar to bolstering NATO's defenses. This time, it was Schmidt who needed a little propping up. His popularity in the polls is down, the West German economy is sputtering, and the defeat of French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing deprived Schmidt of his closest European ally. In short, the Chancellor could use some signals of support from Reagan, and the White House knew...
...stranger to similar sentiments in the past, he pointed out forcefully, but Europe had not wavered in its allegiance to the alliance. Schmidt reminded Reagan that the U.S., unlike West Germany, no longer had a draft, and therefore was less susceptible to the youthful protests that have bedeviled Bonn...
...talks produced no significant policy decisions, but both Washington and Bonn considered the first official meetings between the two leaders a success. Hoping to avoid the frosty relationship that existed between himself and Jimmy Carter, Schmidt wanted to strike a good initial rapport with Reagan-and the President obviously wanted to oblige. By all accounts, the two got along well. Said one Administration official: "There must be no surprises between us. Schmidt wants to go back and tell his people the President promised him there would be no Carteresque zigzags...
...hardiest in Europe, is showing signs of sluggishness, and the nation is expected to experience a negative growth rate in 1981. Unemployment has climbed from 825,000 to 1.1 million persons over the past year, and inflation persists at 6%-low by most Western standards but high by Bonn's. The Chancellor's approval rating in polls has dropped from 62% last year to 41.5% this year-lower than the rating accorded to Willy Brandt before he quit...
Schmidt bravely concurred, noting that a C.D.U.-F.D.P. coalition already runs the state government of the Saarland. But the prospect of shifting alliances in Berlin inevitably touched off talk of similar moves in Bonn, where F.D.P. right-wingers are increasingly impatient with the leftists in Schmidt's unruly party. That, in turn, raised a larger question in Europe's changing political climate: Giscard is gone; is Schmidt in trouble...