Word: iceland
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...from their past stentorian sloganeering. Under Gorbachev, they have come to realize that cultivating international public opinion can boost their foreign policy. The new affability and reasonableness was first evident at the 1985 Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting in Helsinki and became more apparent at the Geneva summit. In Iceland, the style has come into...
Despite the preparations he still must attend to, Reagan is willing to ruminate about his sense of the importance of the Iceland meeting, about how two men in a strange and distant room can shatter the world or heal it. "When I sat down with Gorbachev in Geneva, I told him that here were two individuals in a room who either could provide peace for the world or could bring about World War III," says Reagan, his voice taking on a tone of urgency. "We needed to work to eliminate the mistrust between us and then the armaments that could...
Before he left for Iceland, Reagan tried a couple of his new jokes on his staff. They were so earthy that the staff voted thumbs down. Reagan, undaunted, laughed heartily. He may be keeping something about Gorbachev even from them. "We achieved a certain personal chemistry," Reagan says. "There was no animosity. I think I have some room to maneuver with him. He is not a total czar in his nation. He has his own problems like I have mine. He needs to go home with something...
...usual standard of superpower face-offs, Reagan's preparation for this one has been minimal. Reagan, for all his joviality, made clear that he was heading off to Iceland very much on his guard. He eyed the photo of the Hofdi guesthouse, the austere cottage where they will meet, and asked, "What about the ghosts?" There were a lot of wonderful stories about ghosts and elves, he was told...
Reagan loved the intrigue. He went through the schedule, got a weather report and recalled that he had left his fur hat at Camp David. He had learned a bit about Iceland, he noted, from Tom Clancy's novel Red Storm Rising, which vividly depicts the island's crucial importance to NATO. He also remembered an astronaut's saying that the moon was nicer than training in Iceland...