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RealAudio 14.4, RealAudio 28.8
Well, I would say that in the beginning the rapport was not working. We were
accusing each other and were acting as kind of prosecutors toward the other
side. And we had a lot to say in that respect. And it was at that time that I
said, rather emotionally, and I would say, with conviction and quite sincerely,
I said, "Mr. President, let us not...let us not do this. Don't try to give me
that kind of bunk. I am well informed. If you are convinced that the United
States is the shining city on the hill, don't think that I will agree that
there are no problems in your country. We know that you have great
accomplishments, but we know that you have problems. So let us talk
realistically," I said. Those first little tiffs, they really were there. We
had a lot to say to criticize Soviet policies and I had a lot of criticism,
too. And then I said, "Good, OK, have we come here in order just to read to
each other the list of accusations? People are expecting something different."
And this feeling that the world was waiting, that after the six years when
there had been no summit contacts between Soviet and American leaders, that was
very, very much present. That the world was waiting. That the world was the
third character in that discussion. The world was waiting. The world wouldn't
have forgiven us if after these tremendous years of worry...years of tremendous
worry about what was happening, about the flight in to the abyss, well, we
could not have left Geneva without saying something that would give people
hope. And I think this happened when at the end of the, not at the end but
during the summit, at one of the meetings during the summit. We really had a
good handshake across the table. But that too, did not produce immediately
agreement on the Joint Communiqué. The President was under tremendous
pressure. There was that famous leak of the letter written by Caspar
Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, containing a lot of warnings to the President
from the Secretary of Defense. So the President was under tremendous pressure.
I came with the authority to agree to a Joint Communiqué, to a short
joint statement, so I had more room for maneuver. But then, in the process of
negotiations, and the process of talks and dinners that we had that were
involving not only the two of us, but also our delegations and our wives,
eventually the human rapport and human atmosphere evolved. I cannot give you a
moment or a day when it happened.. But probably closer to the end of the
meeting, we had a feeling that we are in better contact, that we can look at
things, talk things more quietly, more solidly. And then when it happened that
we were waiting for our Ministers to produce some papers, we spent about an
hour together with the President in a small room, just talking. It just
happened accidentally. But nevertheless, in that little cell, almost a kind of
jail cell in which we were confined, we walked about. We talked and something
emerged which would eventually produce a partnership.
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