White House Diaries

Wednesday, March 23, 1988

View the President's Schedule

This is a day that shouldn’t have happened—but it turned out O.K. It was a jammed up schedule but fortunately with an early quitting time. The only break for desk time was 1⁄2 hour at 10:30 A.M.

Staff time was brief but time to review new summit schedule as agreed to by the Soviets—we leave May 26 & return June 3.

Then we had a little post mortem on the veto.

On I.N.F. Sam Nunn, a highly over rated Sen. is kicking a tantrum which could cause trouble in getting it ratified.

Then it was an even shorter N.S.C. time because I had a meeting with ex Pres. of S. Korea Chun Doo Hwan. Nancy & I had spent a few days with them in S. Korea in 1983. I complimented him on how much change he had brought about that led to the peaceful transfer to a new Pres. by way of election.

Then my open half hour at 11:00 over to E.O.B. to speak to the Am. Business Conference. By 11:15 I was back in the Oval O. for a briefing on Shevardnadze visit which began at 11:30 and went on through lunch until 1:30 at which time I met with Geo. S. He’s issuing with my OK a travel advisory to our citizens warning them of danger in visiting the Middle East. Panama is the only country that has an embassy in Israel. We believe Israelis have some connections with Noriega. We’re going to ask them to urge him to leave Panama. We discussed some Ambas. problems also some concerns we have over cease fire talks in Nicaragua. There may not be a cease fire. Finally Afghanistan & the accords negotiated with Soviets by Pakistan. Sen. Byrd is upset & doesn’t seem to have a grasp of the situation.

I went out on the lawn & had a photo taken for use in the Leukemia Fund. effort. Then back in for some bill signing etc. & finally upstairs. Nancy is back from N.Y. & all’s right with the world.