Word: reagan
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Having failed to remove the overwhelming obstacle presented by Star Wars, the two superpower leaders donned their coats and climbed back up the hill to rejoin their retinues. The mood of the two men had become as dark as the chilled evening, but Reagan was determined to end the day on an upbeat note. "I think we agree," he said as they came to the parking lot, "that this meeting is useful." Yes, replied Gorbachev. Then we must meet again, Reagan went on. It was then that he invited the Kremlin leader to come to the U.S. "And I invite...
During that first day Reagan was struck by Gorbachev's willingness to listen. "I'm some judge of acting," he later remarked to reporters, "so I don't think he was acting." Gorbachev looked so intently at Reagan that the President momentarily forgot that the Soviet leader does not speak English, and he kept talking without giving the interpreter a chance to catch up. Gorbachev had to hold up his hand to get Reagan to pause for translation. Reagan later recalled that he had told a couple of jokes and wondered why he did not get a laugh...
...next morning, as soon as the American delegation arrived at the Soviet mission for Wednesday's round of talks, Reagan once again asked his host if he would like to have a private chat. The touchy subject of human rights was on the President's mind. He did not want to belabor the issue for fear of stiffening Soviet resistance. But in the privacy of a small sitting room in the Soviet mission, he told Gorbachev that if the Soviets truly want to improve relations with the U.S., they must repair their record on individual freedom. It is morally repugnant...
When they rejoined their advisers after an hour, the two sides were once again bedeviled by Star Wars. Hoping that he might use the enticement of large cuts in offensive weapons to extract a concession from Reagan on Star Wars, Gorbachev declared, "Something has to be done about SDI before we can get to the subject of reductions." Reagan was not buying. "SDI," he countered, "is long term enough that it ought not to be the thing to make strategic-missile reductions impossible now. Can we afford to let this moment go by when both of us are talking about...
...leaders decided to have their Foreign Ministers break away and assess the prospects for reaching any kind of joint agreement. While Reagan and Gorbachev whiled away the next hour and a half in a sitting room at the Soviet mission, where they sipped tea and Reagan cracked a few jokes,[*] Shultz and Shevardnadze sorted through the unresolved issues. At 5 p.m. they returned to their bosses. Determined to salvage an agreement, Gorbachev rattled off some rapid-fire instructions to his underlings and told them to go back to work and report later that evening. "That's what their...