White House Diaries

Tuesday, May 31, 1983

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The summit in Wmsburg on all our minds but 1st on Fri. had a press interview and then met with P.M. Nakasone of Japan—1st name Yasu. We met in office & then lunch in the St. dining room. He impresses me more every time I see him. At lunch we surprised him with a birthday cake. I cant believe he’s 65. I had him pegged for 45. He’s off to Johns Hopkins U. for a speech & then on to the summit. I finished the day in Williamsburg with a 2 hr. prep meeting for the summit. Sat. 28th—A full day what with touring all the facilities arranged for the summit. Our table—at least 40 ft. long was hand built by craftsman as a gift to the govt. for use at the summit. Had bilateral’s with Pres. Mitterrand (France) & P.M. Margaret Thatcher then a dinner meeting with the other 6 heads of state & the Pres. of the European Council Gaston Thorn. I opened the subject of the I.N.F. deployment. After full discussion it was agreed that we’d have foreign ministers draw up a statement of approval of deployment & of negotiations to reduce & hopefully eliminate all such intermediate range weapons. We met on Sunday morning and out of the blue both Mitterrand & Trudeau said they couldn’t support such a statement. The discussion grew very brisk with Margaret, Helmut, Yasu & Amantore (Italy) all having at them. I got angry & did about 20 minutes. We were one hour late for lunch. In the afternoon meeting we started again on a new draft that tried to meet some of their language complaints without weakening the statement. While Ministers were working on drafts we took up matter of an ec. statement & believe it or not the same 2 had objections to that. We stood firm—I thought at one point Margaret was going to order Pierre to go stand in a corner. It was hard to remember we had started the day with a prayer service in the tiny church. Maybe that’s what did it because we closed the day with both issues resolved, cordially restored & no winners or losers. Sunday night dinner was very pleasant at the old Royal Gov’s. palace. We discussed the middle east but didn’t make it an agenda issue. Monday morning meeting very productive—agreed to do more to cooperate on medical research etc. Rallied around our full ec. statement. At an outdoor lunch we met exchange students—1 from each of our countries. I filled our leaders in on Central Am. Later in day met with Helmut Kohl—he’s solid & with us all the way. Monday night dinner (Nancy had arrived thank Heaven) was something of a banquet. Press already hailing the summit as a success. Tues. saw each of the heads of state off. (Mitterrand, Thatcher & Kohl) had left the night before. Thank you’s all around & back to the W.H.