Conditional Talks

President Reagan is under pressure to meet Mikhail Gorbachev, if only to burnish a new image as a “man of peace,” and Mrs. Thatcher is said to be toying with the idea of a further meeting.

I shall, first, spell out the general case against summit meetings—a strong one. After that, I shall give reasons why, under certain conditions (not, to my knowledge, mentioned so far by the media), a Reagan-Gorbachev summit could be truly beneficial.