Publications
U.S.-Soviet Summits
An Account of East-West Diplomacy at the Top, 1955-1985
by Gordon R. Weihmiller and Dusko Doder
Foreword by
David D. Newsom
(Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 1986)
230 pp,
appendices (synopses and final documents of each summit meeting), notes,
bibliography
paperback $15.00
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From the epilogue by Dusko Doder: " The failure at Geneva was guaranteed by the absence of an agreed conceptual framework; both sides ultimately decided to treat the summit as a get-acquainted session that would be the first step in a new process. This, plus the fact that when the time came, Reagan and Gorbachev tossed aside the agenda and positions carefully structured by their professional aides, made the Geneva summit extraordinary in terms of the mechanics." |
During the Cold War, when the question of an East-West summit meeting was raised, a standard answer from both sides was: "We are prepared to meet at the summit, provided preparations are made for such a meeting."
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From the foreword by David D. Newsom: "There seems never to have been a single point at which the question of whether there should be a summit meeting has been decided. In each administration, the decision appears to have been a matter of the evolution of pressures to the point where a summit became both a diplomatic and political necessity." |
In this book, Gordon R. Weihmiller reviews the preparatory phases of eleven postwar meetings between leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union from the 1955 Geneva Heads of Government meeting to the Vienna summit in 1979, analyzing the circumstances, lead-up, and outcome of each. Dusko Doder examines the background and results of the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev summit, and David Newsom's foreword notes the relationship of summit preparation to summit success.
Readers' Reviews
- CHOICE:
"A very useful summary and analysis. . . . The select bibliography is excellent. Recommended for graduate students and faculty."
- Dan Rather, CBS News:
". . . superb, the most readable scholarly work about summitry in print anywhere."
- The New York Times:
"Required Reading . . ."
ADST |