Word: chancellor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...able to count on the single-minded eagerness of West Germany's Social Democratic leaders to pursue a policy of détente with their Communist neighbors to the east. No longer. The Soviets got a close look last week at Bonn's first Christian Democratic Chancellor after 13 years of Social Democratic rule, and they did not entirely like what they saw. Helmut Kohl's 48-hour visit to Moscow turned out to be a bruising diplomatic skirmish that started badly and ended, as Kohl fully expected, in a standoff. Under a barrage of Soviet threats...
...welcome given his Social Democratic predecessors. For example, Soviet protocol normally dictates that the press suspend all critical references to countries whose leaders are guests in Moscow. But on the day Kohl arrived, the major Soviet television news broadcast included a report on antinuclear demonstrations in Mainz, the Chancellor's home territory. Then there was the mystery surrounding Andropov's failure to receive Kohl on the day of his arrival. Three hours before he was due to leave for Moscow, Kohl was informed that "for personal reasons," Andropov would be unable to meet him on the first...
Next day Kohl met Andropov. At the headquarters of the Supreme Soviet, the government's single-party parliament, the Chancellor was ushered into a medium-size office in which President Andropov was sitting on one side of a green baize-covered table. The two leaders did not shake hands, but Andropov said, "It was my deepest wish to see you yesterday. Unfortunately, it was not possible. I was sick." An eyewitness said the Soviet leader's face looked healthy and that his eyes, behind tinted glasses, were clear and alert. Andropov's left hand appeared numb...
...impressive performance by a leader who wanted to demonstrate that, having established a warm relationship with President Reagan, he was also capable of talking to Moscow. Kohl was assuming that the men in the Kremlin are realists who can live with the notion of a conservative West German Chancellor standing foursquare with Reagan and the other Western allies on NATO defense policies...
After the Chancellor's return to Bonn, a government spokesman announced that Andropov had admitted to a "margin of flexibility" in Moscow's negotiating position. The Soviet leader had also suggested that negotiators extend the current session of the Geneva talks beyond this week's closing date and reconvene ahead of schedule next fall...