South Bend, November 24, 1987
Radiant with Joy
This afternoon, Secretary of State George Shultz, radiant with joy, stepped in front of the TV cameras in Geneva and, visibly moved, shook the hands of his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze. Shultz confirmed that an agreement has been reached to dismantle medium-range missiles with mutually guaranteed verification of how it is being executed. The INF (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces) Treaty can now be signed at the upcoming summit meeting in Washington in December. The Treaty provides that 2,000 short-range and intermediate-range missiles with a range of 300 to 3,000 miles will be dismantled in the East and West.
November 25, 1987
Today, details of the INF Treaty have been made known. Accordingly, all cruise and Pershing II missiles should be dismantled and scrapped in three years time, while the Soviet Union guaranteed to do the same with its SS-20 missiles. Furthermore, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate 1,500 of its nuclear warheads opposite the 350 nuclear warheads that are available on the side of the West. As George Shultz stated today, following the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels: “NATO foreign ministers emphatically approve of a historic superpower agreement to scrap an entire class of nuclear weapons.”
Chicago, November 28, 1987
The Desire for European Culture
Hardly at any other place is the American desire for European culture as manifest as at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street in Chicago. The Chicago Art Institute stands there, and diagonally opposite to it the Orchestra Hall with its broad inscription: “Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner.” The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernstein performed its guest concert in the Orchestra Hall in September. “The Marriage of Figaro” is presently on the program of the Chicago Lyric Opera. But the main attraction these days is the special exhibition of the Courtault Collection from London of “Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces” at the Art Institute. The Chicago Art Institute’s own famous collection of French Impressionists has stimulated a special receptiveness for this art form. Although tickets for the Courtault Exhibition have been sold out for weeks, people nonetheless stand in line in the cold rain on Michigan Street just to get admitted. European culture is not at all thought of here as being foreign, but is accepted as a matter of course as a common heritage one simply partakes of.