Word: reagan
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Each man put his own gloss on the joint statement. To Reagan the issue was "Will we join together in sharply reducing offensive nuclear arms and moving to nonnuclear defensive strengths for systems to make this a safer world?" Countered Gorbachev: "We must not let the arms race move off into space, and we must cut it down on earth...
Through the evening and into the night, the Soviet and American teams worked feverishly to craft mutually acceptable language while Reagan and Gorbachev socialized at a reception thrown by the Swiss government and at a dinner given by the Reagans at their residence, Maison de Saussure. At 10 p.m. the party repaired to the library for coffee, and Reagan and Gorbachev settled on a red sofa, an embroidered cushion between them and their aides huddled around. Shultz quietly advised that negotiations at the staff level were not going well. Then Shultz, so seemingly bland in his public utterances, took...
...Reagan, drawn into playing good cop to Shultz's bad, turned to Gorbachev. "This is a first for us," he said. "Our predecessors have not accomplished a helluva lot. Let's you and I work together" at solving the remaining obstacles. The two leaders should not let themselves get bogged down by squabbling aides. "To hell with the rest of them," he snapped. Gorbachev agreed. The two men shook...
...deal that left the U.S. delegation wearily satisfied. The Soviets had wanted to make Geneva an "arms-control summit" to focus attention on Star Wars. The fact that the statement addressed other issues as well, however fleetingly and blandly, was regarded as something of a victory for Reagan. For the first time, the Soviets had agreed to call for substantial cuts in offensive weapons without simultaneously insisting on a ban on Star Wars. Indeed, SDI was barely alluded to in the joint statement. The aim of the arms-control negotiations, it declared, should be "to prevent an arms race...
Finally, as fine flakes of snow powdered the gray morning sky on Thursday, Reagan and Gorbachev broke their public silence and converged on the drab concrete bunker in Geneva that serves as an international conference center to tell the world what their private fireside summit had produced. Their report was modest. As Gorbachev put it in a brief, formal statement, the talks had failed at "solving of the most important problems concerning the arms race." He cautioned, "If we really want to succeed in something, then both sides are going to have to do an awful lot of work." Nonetheless...