Synopsis
Ambassador Ed Rowny holds a unique position in American history as a key arms control advisor and negotiator for presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush. No other policy-maker has ever negotiated for and counseled five presidents and their cabinets. Ambassador Rowny's revealing memoirs contain startling and sometimes amusing anecdotes about Henry Kissinger, Jim Baker, Amy Carter, drunken Soviet negotiators, Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, and many other U.S. and world figures. It Takes One to Tango highlights what took place behind closed doors and is highly critical of George Bush's presidency.
By the man who helped negotiate and then sink SALT II, this outspoken account of events at the highest government levels is a wry inside look at five U.S. administrations and a barbed commentary on the major players in the foreign policy and national security arenas. This is the book that tells you what it's like to sit at the conference table with presidents, how Brezhnev and Gorbachev behaved, what Ronald Reagan said about Raisa Gorbachev - and which emperors had no clothes. Ambassador Rowny provides an unprecedented look at world leaders, the Washington elite, and negotiating about life and death.
Reviews
The author served on the SALT II delegation for six years and later headed the U.S. team at START (the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks). Here he reminisces about the personalities and policies of five presidential administrations as they dealt with arms control. Rowny discusses why he thinks Richard Nixon overrelied on Henry Kissinger, reveals why Gerald Ford circumscribed Kissinger's diplomatic duties, analyzes Jimmy Carter's technical approach to arms control problem-solving and offers fresh insights into Ronald Reagan's personal negotiating techniques during the four summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev. As for George Bush: Rowny finds him a leader without a plan or even fundamental beliefs and devoid of the strong sense of purpose that so characterized Ronald Reagan. The most memorable sections of the memoir, however, have to do with the art of negotiating, at which Rowny is an ac- knowledged master. He presents a list of what he considers the 10 most important dos and don'ts, which U.S. negotiators should follow to ensure more positive results. Readers will also find here an illuminating analysis of the importance of recognizing cultural differences in international negotiations. Rowney is refreshingly frank about these differences.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The blunt, score-settling recollections of an arms-control negotiator for five Presidents. A three-star general who fought in Italy, Korea, and Vietnam, Rowny was assigned to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in 1973, largely at the behest of the late Senator Henry Jackson, who prized Rowny's fluency in Russian, familiarity with nuclear-deterrence theory--and hawkish concern with national security rather than unverifiable treaties. Once involved in the arcane trade, Rowny was effectively hooked, spending much of the eventful 17 years that followed at the bargaining table with hard-line envoys of the USSR (and, in many cases, the US State Department). In his opinionated, anecdotal retrospective, the author reprises the conflicts, domestic crises, summit meetings, and other geopolitical developments that helped determine the course of the struggle between the two superpowers. While Rowny looks back on efforts to close the Pandora's box of atomic weaponry, he offers candid, often arresting, comment on his superiors, colleagues, and opposite numbers. Reagan--whose peace-through-strength doctrine the author deems vindicated--comes off best. Nixon and Ford also fare well but Carter and Bush, along with a host of lesser lights (including Henry Kissinger), are accorded decidedly short shrift. Throughout, though, Rowny (who has no problem with self-esteem) delivers his typically harsh judgments with considerable humor. In summarizing prospects for reaching an agreement with his truculent USSR adversaries during the mid-70's, he notes: ``I knew the Soviets like their currency were simply not convertible.'' Finally, he cautions that, although the US ``won'' the cold war, the nation and its allies cannot afford to let their guard down. A memoir with an unyielding point of view and genuine bite. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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