Word: gorbachev
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Bush is mildly disappointed with the response from Europe, Britain and France excepted. He is pleased as punch that Mikhail Gorbachev stepped up to be counted with the U.S. Japan came through pretty well; more is expected. The President knows he must recast relations with Israel, design new approaches for Syria and Iran. And those are just the tasks that he faces over his Eastern ocean horizon. At his back and underfoot is his own nation, supportive and giving for the moment, but restive and argumentative and feeling the strains of a new age dawning...
...United Nations to condemn Iraq and impose stiff sanctions. Soviet diplomats have repeatedly urged Iraq to retreat and to free all hostages, while rebuffing pleas to ease their support for the international opposition. When the U.N. was debating the crucial fifth vote authorizing force to back up the sanctions, Gorbachev publicly told Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait or face further action from the U.N. Only a few hours later, the Soviets joined the U.S. in approving the historic resolution...
Wistful speculation can be heard in Moscow about what the two superpowers might have accomplished together politically had Washington not opted to send in troops. As Gorbachev noted in an interview last week in the liberal Moscow News, it was wiser to pursue "collective approaches" than "extreme measures to enhance one's prestige." Like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, the Soviets are obviously betting that their slow and steady brand of diplomacy will ultimately pay off, especially if the first mad dash to contain Saddam should bog down in the sand...
Back in the days when the economy was expanding, the cold war ending and the peace dividend looming large, Ronald Reagan cherished a famous fantasy about flying with Mikhail Gorbachev over the sun-soaked swatches of Southern California, with its mosaic of turquoise swimming pools and tidy lawns and fat white garages plump with new cars. "Those are the homes of American workers," he would proudly declare, describing a Hollywood dreamland where auto mechanics have summer houses and anyone can go to college...
...officials blame factory breakdowns, hoarding by black marketeers and reduced imports from Bulgaria for the cigarette shortage. The protests are regarded as a real threat to perestroika. Moscow's city council announced last week that it would immediately begin rationing cigarettes, limiting consumption to five packs a month. President Gorbachev fired Vladilen Nikitin, his appropriately named head of state procurement, after finding his explanation for the shortage "unconvincing and unsound." Soviet smokers seem to agree. "It was bad enough when they took our vodka away," grumbled a man in a tobacco line. "There was eau de cologne or home brew...