The Best – and Worst – That Can Happen in Singapore
A Q&A on the Trump-Kim summit with Victor Cha, who was nearly U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
Who will win? Those guys on the far right.
Photographer: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images
When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Moscow in 1988 to discuss nuclear reductions, Reagan compared it to appearing in an epic cinematic production by Cecil B. DeMille. By this he meant more than, as he put it, "being dropped into a great historical moment." He was also noting that much, if not most, of the interaction between the two leaders had been pre-scripted as tightly as a Hollywood blockbuster.
This included months of direct meetings between the leaders' top aides; negotiations over a list of 20 proposed prospective events prepared by Nancy Reagan's staff; even the creation a "focus group" of voters in Philadelphia on which to test Reagan's lines. The only surprise was when Gorbachev quoted a Russian proverb that was supposed to be part of Reagan's welcoming speech. Reagan improvised by repeating the line, but crediting Gorbachev on his "wonderful phrase": "It is better to see once than hear a hundred times."