Word: speech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...California was introduced to Soviet officials accompanying Leonid Brezhnev on a visit to President Nixon in San Clemente.* Reagan and Gromyko encountered each other again during the "mix and mingle" portion of the reception, and the Soviet leader indulged in some skeptical banter. Referring to Reagan's forthcoming speech to the U.N., Gromyko asked the President, in English, "How many arrows will you shoot at me tomorrow?" Reagan smilingly answered that he had no arrows in his quiver. Gromyko pressed on: "Twenty arrows? Ten?" Reagan let Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., reply for him: "Not even...
Reagan had in fact edited out of the drafts prepared by White House aides any direct criticism of Moscow. His speech on Monday, delivered in a tone of great earnestness before the General Assembly, contained little that could be construed as even indirect chiding; for example, he advocated "a negotiated outcome" in Afghanistan without once mentioning the Soviet invasion and occupation of that country. His theme was peace through negotiation, and to support it he cited two historical figures who had rarely before appeared in his pantheon of quotable heroes: St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus...
Reagan, says one adviser, "is not going to let himself be stampeded by State into pre-emptive concessions in the heat of the campaign, nor is he going to let himself be stampeded by Defense into slamming any doors he may want to walk through later." In his U.N. speech, the President simply advocated negotiations and added a candid explanation of the difference in tone between that address and his earlier fulminations against the "evil empire." Said Reagan: "America has repaired its strength; we have invigorated our alliances and friendships. We are ready for constructive negotiations with the Soviet Union...
Characteristically, in a passage he inserted into the speech prepared by advisers, Reagan put the appeal for negotiations in highly personal terms. "You know," he remarked, "as I stand here and look out from this podium, there in front of me I can see the seat of the representative from the Soviet Union. And not far from that seat... is the seat of the representative from the United States." Returning to his text, the President continued, "In this historic assembly hall, it is clear there is not a great distance between us. Outside this room, while there will still...
That mood lasted not quite 24 hours - until Gromyko mounted the podium Thursday morning for his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. His face wrinkling at times into the expression of a man who has scented a peculiarly unpleasant odor, Gromyko for 75 minutes assailed the U.S. as the cause of all political tensions that have plagued the world since 1946. His speech, delivered in an icy monotone, was replete with outrageous assertions ("Provocative intrigues continue against sov ereign and nonaligned Afghanistan") and devoid of the slightest hint of a change in Moscow's position on any subject...