Word: shultz
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...shift in mood began in the first hours after Brezhnev's death two weeks ago. It grew more pronounced as Vice President George Bush and Shultz arrived in Moscow for the funeral, under specific instructions from President Reagan to emphasize U.S. willingness to ease tensions. Andropov, accompanied by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and Andrei Alexandrov-Agentov, an adviser on East-West relations, met with them and U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hartman for 30 min. in the brightly lit Green Room of the Kremlin. They discussed nuclear-arms control, Afghanistan and human rights, three of the prickliest issues between...
...attention devoted to the future of relations with the U.S., that is far from the only, and not necessarily even the most pressing, matter on Andropov's mind. Besides receiving Bush and Shultz, the new Soviet boss plunged into a round of meetings with satellite, neutralist and even anti-Communist heads of government who were in Moscow for Brezhnev's funeral (see WORLD). Soviet officials sought to impress on Americans that, because their chief intends to move fast in establishing the main themes of his foreign policy, the U.S. has no time to lose in seeking a better...
Nonetheless, the Reagan Administration by midweek concluded that the melodious mood music might just prove soothing enough to produce an unwarranted euphoria in the nation and world. Accordingly, Washington moved to damp it down. At a Thursday news conference held for that purpose, Secretary of State Shultz asserted that "signals are fine" and the U.S. appreciated the "great courtesy" that Andropov had shown toward himself and Bush, but "the thing we are really looking for . . . is the substance of change in behavior." As Shultz noted, no sooner had Brezhnev been laid to rest than "it was as though someone threw...
Washington, said Shultz, would be watching especially for signs that Soviet negotiators are ready for "a process of give and take" in arms-control talks already under way in Geneva and Vienna, and human rights discussions in progress in Madrid. The U.S. would welcome other steps, like a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan or an easing of martial law in Poland, he asserted, but these are not matters for direct talks between Washington and Moscow...
...case, Reagan, though now willing to moderate U.S. rhetoric, is a visceral anti-Soviet who hates to reverse course, and the increasingly influential Shultz (see box) is by temperament a cautious diplomat who likes to formulate policy only after a situation has been thoroughly analyzed, and it will take time to assess the new constellation of forces in the Kremlin. Says a Shultz aide: "Where is the U.S.S.R. going? The serious answer is that we don't know." In Shultz's mind, that justifies a wait-and-see attitude...