Word: helmut
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Continuity indeed is vital in all international relations. U.S, lack of consistency is a chief complaint of such puzzled allies as Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, who went to Washington last week to convey some of his grievances. Says William Kintner, former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and now a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania: "It sounds as if Carter never heard of the basic axiom that the art of diplomacy is consistency. His is a policy of flip-flops and zigzags...
...Carter's unpredictable and seemingly capricious approach to foreign policy. Although fully briefed on the U.S.'s proposed response to the Soviet invasion, the West Germans were stung by the President's handling of the Olympic boycott. Administration officials had first told West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt that a boycott was not being considered. Carter changed his mind, and Bonn was given only two hours' notice before the boycott was announced. Said a West German diplomat of last week's Security Council debacle: "The U.N. flip-flop is just one more piece of evidence...
...Bonn the Secretary had to mollify some outspoken critics of U.S. moves in the post-Afghanistan era. Certain West German officials had privately derided Carter's Olympic boycott as "downright dumb." Chancellor Helmut Schmidt resented not being consulted in advance about this decision. A bare two hours' notice on the day of its announcement, he observed unsmilingly, was "a little late." The West Germans also feared serious setbacks to their international trade if they followed Carter's proscriptions on commercial dealings with Moscow...
...Americans-and indeed to many Europeans-the reaction was irritatingly familiar. French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt issued a joint statement strongly condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Three days later, Paris abruptly declared that it would not be represented at a German-sponsored meeting of Western European foreign ministers with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in Bonn. Once again, France stood out as seemingly arrogant and as the ally least disposed to back Washington in an international crisis...
...Foreign Ministers' meeting in Bonn next week. The talks had been initiated by the U.S. The French refusal to participate considerably undercut the impact of an unusually strong joint statement issued earlier in the week by French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt; it called the Soviet intervention "unacceptable" and demanded a withdrawal...