Word: sovietizers
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...billed as "Style Wars" and "Tea and Empathy." Nancy Reagan, the polished Southern California socialite, and vivacious Raisa Gorbachev, the uniquely style-conscious Soviet First Lady, were advertised as going coiffure to coiffure in a well-scripted spate of public relations appearances while their husbands went eyeball to eyeball over substance behind closed doors. In fact, while the women generated little real warmth in private discussions, they nevertheless displayed a dignity that transcended the much hyped designer-dress face-off. Pressed by a reporter about style-wars comparisons, Nancy Reagan aptly retorted: "I really think that's a little silly...
...other appearances, both women acquitted themselves well. Raisa Gorbachev remained unflustered when heckled loudly by a Soviet émigré outside the Geneva city hall. Nancy Reagan momentarily lost her train of thought while conversing with addicts at a drug treatment center but recovered and launched into a warm pep talk. In a joint appearance at a Red Cross ceremony, Nancy Reagan carefully read a prepared speech; Raisa Gorbachev had largely memorized hers, impressing the audience with the resulting sincere eye contact. At a second tea party, this one given by an increasingly confident Raisa Gorbachev at the Soviet mission...
...Soviet journalists ignored the tea functions as insufficiently newsworthy. But their reports of Raisa Gorbachev's other appearances in Geneva found a receptive audience back home. She was featured in action at the Red Cross ceremony, and her name was mentioned for the first time on Soviet television. In Moscow citizens took obvious pride in her stylishness. Said a Soviet artist: "You Westerners must have thought all our women were barrel-shaped grannies like Brezhnev's wife." Some observers thought that the First Lady's performance might lead to a more formal role, heretofore unheard of, in Soviet public life...
...hoped the final document would include another reaffirmation, that of the antiballistic-missile (ABM) treaty of 1972. Advocates of arms control within the Administration want to seize every opportunity to commit the U.S. to keeping SDI within the bounds of that treaty. Doing so, they hope, might allay Soviet concerns and induce concessions. Why was there no mention of the ABM treaty in the joint statement...
...joint statement augur not imminent accord but protracted discord, and not just between Moscow and Washington but within the Administration as well. Resolving those disputes will take time, probably a long time, and that may be where the summit turns out to have helped most. As Georgi Arbatov, the Soviet Union's best-known Americanologist, put it, "The meeting has improved the possibility that there might be real breakthroughs achieved later...