Patio diplomacy: a time-honored tradition for breaking the ice
Bush will host Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, Maine, on July 1.
from the June 29, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
In general, talks between a US president and another head of state are highly scripted, even at home. Topics are decided upon ahead of time, and raised in a mutually agreed upon order.
Still, surprises occur. In June 1973, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev visited President Nixon's home in San Clemente, Calif. Mr. Brezhnev became inebriated at a reception laid out for his arrival, according to the memoir of longtime USSR ambassador to the US Anatoly Dobrynin, and bent Nixon's ear with complaints about other Soviet notables.
That night, the guard outside Brezhnev's door had to forcibly turn away first lady Pat Nixon, who was apparently walking in her sleep, according to Ambassador Dobrynin.
For the guest, a summons to a US President's home is more prestigious than a visit to the presidential retreat of Camp David.
"It's a level of personal contact that both sides cherish," says Professor Jillson.And the forum can be useful.
At San Clemente, Brezhnev tried to warn the US about the mounting threat of a new Israeli-Arab conflict – though the Americans didn't pick up on the warning, and the Yom Kippur war followed in October
Khrushchev's visit to Gettysburg in 1959 helped deflate rising US-USSR tensions over the fate of Berlin. He seemed considerably more relaxed during the rest of his US visit, according to historical sources. In the following months, Soviet officials pestered their US counterparts as to whether Ike's grandchildren would be allowed to visit Moscow.
But after a US U-2 spy plane was downed over Soviet territory, the cold war began to spiral up in earnest.
And even before then, Ike's daughter-in-law, Barbara Eisenhower, had made her children throw out the red stars they'd received from Khrushchev.
"They were communist insignia," she said, indignantly, in a 1983 oral history interview. "I just didn't want them wearing souvenirs of his visit.
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