Word: formality
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Ideally, a summit should produce some formal, leather-bound outcome, like the SALT I treaty that Richard Nixon brought home from his Moscow meeting with Leonid Brezhnev. A summit represents high history, the great encounter above the tree line. It sometimes excites almost sacramental expectations. Geneva produced neither great treaties nor triumphant rhetoric. The gray prose in use for such occasions reported that "the meetings were frank and useful. Serious differences remain." If Geneva represented anything, it was the triumph of candor and realism. No one got carried away...
...were supposed to chat privately, alone with their interpreters, for just 15 minutes before joining their advisers, half a dozen on each side, for a formal discussion of relations between the two countries. Reagan, however, had a different idea. Right away he proposed to Gorbachev that the two of them do as much of their business as possible in private, away from their staffs. Gorbachev accepted with alacrity. "Here we are," said Reagan when the two men had settled into high-backed armchairs by the fire in a small sitting room. "Between us, we could come up with things that...
...morning sky on Thursday, Reagan and Gorbachev broke their public silence and converged on the drab concrete bunker in Geneva that serves as an international conference center to tell the world what their private fireside summit had produced. Their report was modest. As Gorbachev put it in a brief, formal statement, the talks had failed at "solving of the most important problems concerning the arms race." He cautioned, "If we really want to succeed in something, then both sides are going to have to do an awful lot of work." Nonetheless, Reagan declared, U.S.-Soviet relationships had been given...
...first time on Soviet television. In Moscow citizens took obvious pride in her stylishness. Said a Soviet artist: "You Westerners must have thought all our women were barrel-shaped grannies like Brezhnev's wife." Some observers thought that the First Lady's performance might lead to a more formal role, heretofore unheard of, in Soviet public life...
There was a feeling of history in the making last week as the British House of Commons voted 473 to 47 in favor of the accord giving the Irish Republic a formal consulting voice in the governing of Northern Ireland. After the tally was announced, the Rev. Ian Paisley, a militant Protestant leader, shouted, "Ulster forever!" The next day, Paisley and fellow Democratic Unionist M.P. Peter Robinson tendered their resignations in the Commons' traditional fashion by applying for nominal Crown jobs, which would bar them from House membership. Their 13 Ulster Unionist colleagues vowed to follow suit...