Word: gromyko
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gromyko gets a chance to speak his mind to the General Assembly on Thursday. The address had originally been set for Tuesday, before he sat down with either Shultz or Reagan. But after his arrival in New York, Gromyko cagily rescheduled to the later date for "technical reasons." That would give him the option to tone down the expected tough line of the speech if he wanted to respond favorably to Reagan's address or to overtures made by Shultz in private. Most analysts predicted that Gromyko would stick to his original text. "He will probably give...
Then, on Friday, Gromyko heads for the main event of the week: his discussion with Reagan at the White House. The President prepared for his first encounter with high-level Soviet officialdom by reviewing thoroughly the numerous proposals made by the U.S. over the past ten months to get arms negotiations back on track, as well as memos from Shultz and former Secretary of State Alexander Haig on their previous conversations with Gromyko. As has been the case throughout his Administration, Reagan received conflicting advice from two ideologically opposed schools of influence around...
...fettered by arms-control agreements as it tries to match or surpass the Soviets. As one hard-liner put it early in Reagan's Administration, "Arms control is bad medicine; it is, ipsofacto, bad." Some of the arms-control opponents urged Reagan to use the meeting with Gromyko as a high-level gripe session to complain about a number of Soviet transgressions, prominently including alleged violations by Moscow of previous arms-control agreements...
...thing that could conceivably change this fairly cautious approach would be a specific overture of some kind from Gromyko. U.S. officials candidly admitted that they did not have the slightest notion of what, if any, initiatives the Soviets were bringing with them. It is possible that Gromyko could table some specific proposals in his session with Shultz that would cause the U.S. side to regroup hastily. Said a senior State Department official, hoping that this would happen: "Whether it makes sense to talk specifics depends on whether the Soviets are prepared really to re-engage on arms control...
Much depends on Gromyko's reaction to any new approaches suggested by Reagan. Longtime observers of the Soviet Foreign Minister have nicknamed him "Grim Grom" for his stony demeanor and negative responses to pleas for Soviet compromise. Says a U.S. diplomat: "He loves to put you on the defensive." At his last meeting with Gromyko, this past January in Stockholm, Shultz found his Soviet counterpart in such profoundly bearish spirits that he decided against bringing up an exploratory arms-talks proposal, which he had been authorized to present only after considerable infighting within the Administration. A display of Grim...