Word: helsinki
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Soviet Union broke fresh ground on issues of substance; neither side departed from long-held positions on disarmament, human rights and various regional conflicts. But both Shultz and Shevardnadze seemed intent on moderating superpower rhetoric, even as each side blamed the other for weakening the Helsinki Accords, once considered a milestone of détente (see box). In their private conversations, they moved easily into a rapport that, as a senior Administration official later put it, "expressed the will" to make progress at the November summit, the first such U.S.-Soviet meeting since 1979. That accomplishment, said Shultz afterward, helped...
However the Helsinki conversations were described, they amounted to a successful, if initially hesitant, debut for Shevardnadze. The silver-haired, outgoing former Communist Party boss from the southern republic of Georgia had few evident credentials for the Foreign Minister's job beyond close ties with Gorbachev. Shevardnadze's expertise lies in public administration, where he made his mark with boldness, incorruptibility and a flair for public relations during a 20-year career in Georgia as minister of public order and eventually party secretary...
...first in Helsinki, he appeared nervous and ill at ease. When he entered Finlandia Hall's blue-and-white main auditorium, he looked so diffident that some onlookers mistook him for a diplomatic aide. One who did not make that error was Shultz, who strode purposefully from his front-row seat to shake hands with the Foreign Minister and introduce himself. When a journalist asked Shevardnadze to stop and answer questions, the Foreign Minister shrugged, grinned and replied, "They won't let me," apparently a reference to his aides...
...predictable litany of accusations against the U.S. for deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, for "violating" Strategic Arms Limitation treaties and for pushing ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars, "by whatever means." Discussing human rights, one of the cornerstones of the Helsinki Accords, Shevardnadze declared, "Our country has not allowed and will not allow anyone to interfere in its internal affairs." Said a senior U.S. official: "The positions he described were all quite familiar...
Those sweeping words and the many thousands that followed became enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. The document, signed by 33 European nations, the U.S. and Canada, was an agreement to work together on common problems, from reuniting families to conducting research on permafrost, from forecasting earthquakes to forewarning about military maneuvers. Ten years later, the assessment of those noble pledges has soured. Said Secretary of State George Shultz at last week's commemorative session in the Finnish capital: "The most important promises of a decade ago have not been kept...