Word: geralds
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...first Soviet-American summit since Brezhnev and Gerald Ford met at Vladivostok in 1974. Clearly another one was overdue. Détente, launched in 1972 by Richard Nixon and Brezhnev to the clink of champagne glasses under the crystal chandeliers at the Kremlin, had eroded badly. There were strains over the huge buildup of Soviet nuclear and conventional arms, Soviet intervention in Africa, the fall of the pro-Western regime in Iran. Brezhnev, on the other hand, had been enraged by Carter's human rights campaign, which the Soviets viewed as interference with their internal affairs, the Americans' surprise proposal...
...looked forward to meeting Brezhnev more than almost anything else during his years as President, and he spent an unprecedented amount of time preparing for the encounter. He phoned Richard Nixon, who had signed SALT I in Moscow in 1972, for advice on how to deal with Brezhnev. Gerald Ford came by the White House to suggest that if Brezhnev became blustery, as he did at Vladivostok in 1974, Carter should respond politely but firmly and not retreat an inch. CIA Director Stansfield Turner showed Carter some video tapes of Nixon's and Ford's meetings with Brezhnev so that...
...accompanied by Vance; Defense Secretary Harold Brown; National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; General George Seignicus, Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; General David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and four Georgians from the White House: Hamilton Jordan, Frank Moore, Jody Powell and Gerald Rafshoon. All of them carried under their arms black, 3-in.-thick briefing books, stamped in gold with the presidential seal and the legend: PRESIDENT CARTER'S MEETING WITH SOVIET PRESIDENT BREZHNEV...
...channel to Brezhnev and invited him to Washington. That channel soon began to close. On the day that Brezhnev headed home from the U.S., John Dean began his Watergate testimony on the Hill. Nixon's political life was rushing toward its end, and the Kremlin sensed it. Gerald Ford was no master of the details of nuclear arms control at Vladivostok that November, but again the measure that he and Brezhnev took of each other proved important. This time it kept hope alive...
Even the site of this weekend's summit is dictated by the fragility of Brezhnev's health. In 1974 Richard Nixon had traveled to Moscow and Gerald Ford to Vladivostok, so protocol required that this time the U.S. play host to the Soviet leader. But Brezhnev's doctors did not want to subject him to the rigors of a transatlantic flight. The agenda for the Vienna summit has been kept as flexible as possible to allow Brezhnev maximum time for naps and ministrations by the physicians in his entourage...