While the Summit Slept

Sam Donaldson, ABC White House correspondent and self-styled bad boy of telejournalism, is hip-deep in traffic. Note pad in hand, he darts among a snarl of automobiles outside Geneva's Inter-Continental Hotel, barking commands into a high-powered walkie-talkie. "Donaldson to transportation desk! Transportation, this is Donaldson! I need a car out here, now!"

Fake left, cut right. Sam throws a hip juke at a bewildered motorist and sprints for the far curb. "Whaddaya mean, 'Where?'" he shouts, obviously having his problems with a confused and by now frightened network aide. "In front of the hotel... no, no, no, in the street!"

I figure now is as good a time as any to approach Sam. (continued on page 169) Summit Slept (continued from page 92) This may well be one of his sanguine moments. My Playboy editor's idea, of course--always looking for a discomfiting element in whatever story I'm assigned. "Hook up with Sam in Geneva," he said. "He'll be a great help and lots of fun."

"Has it occurred to you," I replied, "that this man makes his living heckling my father on national TV?"

Sam eyes me with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism, his bushy eyebrows, so demonically prominent at televised news conferences, arching quizzically. "How far is the conference center?" he demands. "I've got to make the McFarlane briefing."

"Pretty close," I tell him, but he has already spun on his heels and headed off down the street for the press conference being held by then--National Security Advisor Robert "Bud" McFarlane.

The same weird, morbid fascination has drawn both Sam and me to Geneva. We're not alone. About 3000 journalists from every crevice on the planet have gathered to watch as the President of the United States and General Secretary Gorbachev of the Soviet Union's Communist Party meet for the first time to see if they can't forestall nuclear oblivion. Optimism is not running rampant. Each side has more than 10,000 multimegaton warheads aimed at each other--hideous radiation-spewing devices capable of reducing entire cities to glassy parking lots, their citizenry to shadows on fragments of walls. The President promises a vast, laser-equipped, particle-beam rail-gun space shield to protect us from Soviet missiles. The general secretary, his economy in a centralized shambles, is in no mood for technological leapfrog. Under such circumstances, the terrain of traditional psychology drops off precipitously. Survival mechanisms overload and short-circuit. Leaders subjected to the stress of impending Armageddon could slip into a dangerous what-the-hell nihilism: "General, tell your boys to give those keys a crank, then high-tail it up to Camp David. Nancy's mixing up a pitcher of margaritas. We're gonna circle the lawn chairs and watch the whole show from the back porch."

Other issues reverberate in the frosty Alpine air. Is a 7.1 percent unemployment rate an atrocity equivalent to the gulag? Will the Soviets agree to destroy their chemical-weapons stockpiles before using them up on Afghanistan? When will the Bolshoi Ballet revisit New York? But the overriding concern is nuclear peril. Bounding along in Sam's wake, shuttling between press conferences, I begin to glimpse the frayed edges of a story containing major elements of the human condition--frustration, rage, hallucination.

The design of the main conference hall at the International Conference Center is early United Nations. Unadorned. Vaguely Scandinavian. Audiences--in this case, reporters--sit at long, baize-covered tables fitted with microphones and headsets for simultaneous translation. Sam and I take front-row seats in a section reserved by ABC. It's a full house. Journalists are attending this press conference and others like it not in hopes of scaring up any real news--there is none--but in the interest of seeming busy to their bosses/editors/news directors back home. Fact is, there haven't been any stories for days, a situation unlikely to change until at least Tuesday, when the President and the general secretary meet in a small lakeside château, soon to become a condominium. That leaves a lot of newsies on deadline with nothing to report. The whole affair would have a Zenlike quality--masons building a wall without bricks--if the ramifications weren't so distressing.

For a change, Americans aren't the only ones holding press briefings. The Soviets, increasingly eager to join their Western counterparts in manipulating the Western media, have made themselves unusually available. Just prior to the McFarlane conference, Georgi A. Arbatov, head of Moscow's Institute of the United States and Canada, and Soviet spokesman Leonid M. Zamyatin conducted their own encounter with the press. Both are grizzled veterans, long practiced in the Kremlin's grim methodology. Suddenly, they find themselves having to attempt charm when confronted with all these running-dog journalists. The strain on their jowls must be excruciating.

The Western press, for its part, responds with an excess of circumspection. Questions posed to the Soviets, far from being pointed or combative, float in like looping, slow-pitch softballs.

One incident, however, offers a glimpse under the Soviets' cheery masks. Irina Grivnina, a diminutive, gray-haired woman, until two weeks previous a Russian citizen, now working for a Dutch periodical, took a microphone and launched into a tirade against human-rights abuses in the U.S.S.R. Morally defensible but clearly out of line for a working journalist. She drew boos from some reporters in the hall. Now, any Western press spokesman worth his air fare would have defused the situation and carried off the day with a gently humorous retort. The Soviets got huffy. "Do we have to call in the militia and have this woman removed?" shrieked Zamyatin, who must have thought he was back in Moscow.

Back at the McFarlane briefing, things are proceeding fitfully.

"Let's get Sam out of the way," says Press Secretary Larry Speakes, winking.

Sam bristles. "I'll wait until Mr. McFarlane calls on me."

There is nothing meaningful, though, that Sam or anyone else can ask--at least, nothing McFarlane is likely to answer in depth. Finally, Sam waves his bright-red necktie at Speakes. "Let's wrap this up," he rumbles, pointing to his watch. A few last desultory attempts at interrogation and everyone files out into the damp evening air.

Late night. I fall into a deep and deeply troubled sleep. Somewhere among ravaged synapses and arrhythmically firing neurons, a twisted dream takes shape.

•

There comes an insistent rapping at my door. I fall out of bed into a room that has taken on the contorted proportions of Dr. Caligari's cabinet. Opening the door, I find Sam standing in the hall, clad head to toe in black, furiously working his brows--arch left, furrow right, arch right, furrow left. "Get dressed," he says. "Something dark. We haven't a moment to lose."

"Sam," I say--I feel like I've wandered into a German-expressionist wet dream--"what the hell?"

He reaches out and clamps a hand onto my face, pinching the cheeks together. "Say, 'Bubby-chub.' "

"Bmphf!"

"Close enough." He unlocks his grip and resumes arching and furrowing. "Got any camo paint?"

"What's with the eyebrows?" I ask, pulling a sweater over my head.

"They're a valuable tool of my trade." He stares at me. "I've gotta keep 'em in shape for intimidation purposes."

Snow is falling lightly as we hit the street. It dusts the sidewalk, making our shoes squeak with every step. Sam breaks into a rangy lope, knees bent, arms low, head sweeping back and forth. He seems to be scanning for something--some scent, perhaps.

"What are we doing out here?" I pant, jogging alongside.

"This is what we big-time journalists call investigative reporting," he replies.

"OK, OK." I take another swallow of cold air. "And just what are we investigating?"

Without breaking stride, Sam reaches into a leather bag dangling from his neck and brings a pinch of small green leaves to his mouth. Ruminating slowly, he throws me a sidelong glance.

"The Great Game," he says.

Now I'm confused and pissed off. I grab Sam's arm, pulling him up short. "It's the middle of the night; it's freezing; and you drag me out of bed with some bullshit story...." The look in his eyes--fixed on something up the way--cuts me off. I follow his gaze just in time to catch a long black car silently turning onto a side street.

"That's a ZIL limousine!" shouts Sam. "It must be Gorbachev!" Without another word, he takes off in pursuit.

•

Journalists unwinding after a tough day have certain requirements: well-stocked bars with breakaway furniture--joints where you're handed a tab as you come through the door and your employer can mail a check to cover damages; floor shows featuring lusty youths performing in risqué fashion with dancing bears; in short, debauchery made quick and easy. These and many other amusements are not to be found in staid Geneva. What you will find are banks and watches. Banque Suisse, Cartier, Citicorp, Patek Philippe. All eventually blend together. Time is money and, in Geneva, money buys time. George Will, columnist and ABC commentator, observing sadly these temporal commodities, proclaims the Swiss "penultimate bourgeois capitalists."

With saturnalian excess a dim prospect and shopping expensive, most journalists are dividing their time between two conference halls, one at the conference center, the other at the Inter-Continental. Searching for Sam at the latter, I fight my way through a maelstrom of tripod-mounted cameras, boom mikes and are lights. Despondent reporters clatter away on typewriters or portable word processors.

Up front, a commotion erupts. The throng surges, then parts, and I catch sight of Sam, his teeth locked onto the hand of a statuesque CNN field producer. As I reach them, Sam is still emitting terrier growls from between clenched jaws and the woman is looking around for any heavy object within reach.

No one labors under the illusion that these press briefings provide anything but fresh television pictures for the evening news. If Bud McFarlane should neglect to change his tie from day to day, even those would be worthless. The mood among those with daily deadlines has turned particularly ugly. TV reporters from local stations in California, for instance, feed live dispatches at one, three and five A.M., then spend all day vainly chasing leads. Not surprisingly, they've taken on the aspect of journalistic junk-yard dogs, snapping at anything that smells ripe. Some have decided that, in the absence of legitimate news, I would make a good story. Photographers and camera crews have begun showing up in the lobby of my hotel and chasing me down the street. One German reporter, rumpled and bleary, looks as if he spent all night staking out my lobby.

Sam is bearing up relatively well, but even he feels the strain of piecing together coherent news segments out of disjointed nonevents. "Is this a summit meeting or a meeting at the summit?" he yells at a departing McFarlane, who ignores him.

Irina Grivnina has returned to the conference center, causing Arbatov and Co. to stalk out in a rage. Local authorities, she claims, are trying to strip her of press accreditation. Some of the assembled journalists are sympathetic, vouching for her story. Others are downright belligerent. One short, stocky man lunges at her and has to be physically restrained. A tall Asian fellow berates her at length--"You ruined our press conference!"--until someone tells him to go fuck himself.

Picking our way along the fringe of the crowd, Sam and I look for an opening.

"I don't think we can get any closer," I shrug.

"Wanna bet?" says Sam.

Wielding his walkie-talkie like a bolo, Sam leaps onto a table. More timid souls scatter like dry leaves.

At dinner, over a bottle of'79 Chambertin, I apprise Sam of my plans for the next day. When the summiteers meet for the first time at Chateau Fleur D'Eau, I'll be on the inside. I'm aware that the White House press corps, stuck out in the cold, will probably become enraged. I might as well jump into a cage full of hungry lions dressed as a lame zebra. But, hell, opportunities like this don't come along often.

Sam nods in solemn assent. "You'd be a fool not to go for it." He raises his glass.

•

Huddled against a stiff wind, on the second-story-window ledge of a nondescript warehouse, Sam and I peer through frosted panes at a scene almost breath-takingly bizarre. Inside, the two superpower leaders, flanked by their most prominent advisors, are seated around a circular green-felt tabletop. Chips are stacked high and cards are flying.

The general secretary executes a rapid deal from a crimson deck.

"Ante up, boys," he grumbles in heavily accented English. "Intermediate range or better to open."

I look to Sam for explanation. "Like I told you... the Great Game," he whispers. "You probably thought that term referred to geopolitics. It's really five-card stud." He squints intently through the window. "The entire course of history could change with the luck of the draw."

Gorbachev slaps his cards onto the table. "Ha! I've got a pair of mines in a Nicaraguan harbor!"

The President smiles faintly and carefully arranges his own hand in front of him. "You lose," he says. "I'm looking at a Helsinki watch committee... Sakharov high."

For a moment, Gorbachev is speechless; then he begins to sputter. "This... this is impermissible. There are no such cards in the deck."

"Well, Mickey"--the President is still smiling--"maybe not in your deck, but they're sure as hell in mine."

The general secretary darkens with anger. "Viktor!" He snaps his fingers at a burly aide looming in the shadows. "Bring me my 'football.'"

Viktor slides a bulky attache case onto the table. Gorbachev flips it open and poises his forefinger over a phosphorescently glowing red button. "Is this what you want?" he asks, glowering.

•

I wake in a cold sweat. Outside my window, the morning is gray, threatening. A frigid wind blusters off the lake.

At 7:45, in the lobby of the Inter-Continental, I rendezvous with my White House contact. In tow is ace photojournalist David Hume Kennerly, on assignment for Time magazine. Kennerly and I have both exploited ties to the Administration to gain access to the first plenary session at Fleur D'Eau. As far as I know, we're the only outsiders with ringside seats.

The scene outside the chateau is reminiscent of a coup in some small cocaine autocracy. An excited mob, wielding a dangerous assortment of light poles, telephoto lenses and various extension devices, heaves insistently against the main gate. The press pool wants inside... now! Stern-faced Secret Servicemen, shoulder to shoulder with Uzi-toting Swiss army regulars, just manage to hold the line. Atop the walls, menacing coils of concertina wire deter the intrepid.

"My God," gasps Kennerly, "we'll never make it through that crowd. If they catch on we're getting special access, they'll...." He swallows. "Have you ever seen a man literally torn to pieces?"

Not a pretty sight. "There must be a side entrance," I tell him, and we back away from the increasingly ugly spectacle.

Kennerly and I are treading a razor-thin line. In the news business, people lose sleep worrying about getting scooped. Consequently, among the best journalists, a camaraderie develops that precludes back stabbing. In gaining entree to the summit, the two of us are trampling all over that camaraderie. We both have our rationales. Kennerly, a White House photographer during the Ford Administration, applied months in advance and, as far as he knows, no one else ever did. My own interest is a citizen's curiosity. With peace and war on the agenda, how could I pass up an insider's perspective? Regardless, at the end of the day, we'll have to leave the cozy, firelit warmth of the château. Outside the walls, stomping around in the bitter cold, an angry gang of reporters will be waiting.

The château is empty except for a few-advance personnel and Secret Service agents. With nearly two hours to kill before the scheduled ten-A.M. kickoff, Kennerly and I wander about unhindered. Well, not exactly. Upon recently returning from a short trip to Vietnam, Kennerly discovered that a particularly nasty parasite had taken up residence in his large intestine. He now requires constant rehydration. In the midst of his perusing the stretch-oval table over which the two leaders will parlay, a look of sheer anxiety washes over him and he dashes upstairs seeking relief.

About ten minutes before the appointed hour, the President's motorcade roars up the drive. The Secret Service A-team sweeps in, followed by the President, Secretary of State George Shultz, Chief of Staff Don Regan, McFarlane, Ambassador to the Soviet Union Arthur Hartman, Paul Nitze, Rozanne Ridgway et al. Quickly--there isn't much time before Gorbachev arrives--people collect in clusters to go over last-minute details or maybe to psych up. There is an understandable air of expectancy and uncertainty. Whether or not history will be made here today, this event is clearly a bigger deal than, say, the Rose Bowl. The stakes, for one thing--the potential incineration of the Northern Hemisphere--are somewhat higher.

In the blue antechamber where the two summiteers will shortly suffer the attentions of various press pools, Shultz, Regan, McFarlane and Larry Speakes huddle around the President. Discussion turns to his midnight-blue overcoat. Should he wear it when stepping outside to greet Gorbachev? The Soviet leader will almost certainly be bundled up against the damp chill. Will he consider it a subtle effort at one-upmanship if his opposite number isn't similarly attired?

The leader of the free world makes a command decision. "Hell, if you're at home and somebody comes to visit, you don't put on a coat just to answer the door." The overcoat comes off. "He'll understand."

There is a whisper of tires on gravel as a big ZIL pulls up to the back entrance. Gorbachev slides out and doffs his hat. The President guides him up the stairs with an amicable hand on his elbow.

Flashbulbs pop, motor drives whir as members of the international media file through the blue room. Propped up in beige-upholstered armchairs, the President and the general secretary look like part of a diorama in some Disney cavalcade of nuclear history. Both men seem tense, Gorbachev more so. He smiles occasionally but soon settles into his accustomed deadpan. No wonder. If the President fails here in Geneva, his approval rating drops. If Gorbachev blows it--is tricked, say, into allowing democratic reform in Poland--he could wind up as kibble for Siberian sled dogs.

Pressed into a corner, feeling more and more empathy for Gorbachev's plight, I try to remain inconspicuous to the press. It's hopeless, not least because I'm wearing a bright-red shirt.

What does one wear to a summit meeting? The U.S. team seems to have opted for standard, Washington-issue, sober suits. (The exception: Bernard Kalb, who's sporting a god-awful bright-orange necktie with a cigarette burn at the tip.) The Russians are actually a bit funkier than our guys, but I'll bet I'm the only one on the premises wearing blue jeans and red hightop Reeboks.

Gorbachev is staring at me, perhaps wondering, Who's this guy in the funny clothes? I give him a nod and return the gaze. The general secretary, I read somewhere, likes to intimidate with eye contact, à la Lyndon Johnson. Maybe he figures to warm up on me. We stare and stare, long past the point of comfort or courtesy. His eyes are coldly critical. The problem--his problem--is that I've got nothing better to do. No one is thrusting a boom mike into my face, asking, "How're you two getting along so far?" His eyes glaze and trail off toward the floor.

Kennerly is doing a crackerjack job of insinuating himself into places he's less than welcome. Cameras strapped around him like bandoleers, he angles from room to room, popping up unexpectedly, working the margins of tolerance. Already, Soviet advance men are incensed because he has upset the agreed-upon balance of reporters--two per side. The last straw is delivered when he actually follows the President and the general secretary into a second anteroom, where they'll conduct their first tête-à-tête. He's muscled out by a K.G.B. agent the size of a Celtics center.

Those who (A) believe the President is too dim-witted to resist giving away Long Island to a wily Gorbachev and/or (B) suffer anxiety at being so long removed from what they fondly call the "process" become increasingly edgy as the leaders' private meeting, originally scheduled for ten minutes, stretches to an hour. One hapless aide asks the Secretary of State whether someone shouldn't step in and break things up. Shultz replies that he ought to reconsider his notions of statesmanship or seek employment elsewhere.

Just over an hour since they began, the President and the general secretary emerge, smiling, and repair to the plenary session--six advisors to a side, simultaneous translation (a victory for the Americans: The Soviets preferred to slow things down by translating only after someone had finished speaking). Another hour or so passes before they break for lunch.

The afternoon session begins more briskly than the morning's--no more photo opportunities. Along with Presidential biographer Edmund Morris, I decide to remain closer to the action. Instead of whiling away the time in an upstairs holding room, we adjourn to the blue antechamber. Ears pressed to the door, we can with difficulty make out what's being said in conference.

Gorbachev launches into an extended summary of world history as viewed through the Kremlin's magic kaleidoscope. He goes on for so long I end up slumped on the floor, exhausted. As the President gears up to respond, Morris whips out a small note pad and begins to scribble. We're just about to review the Baruch Plan when a member of the Soviet delegation enters the room from outside.

"Nyet! Nyet!" he cries, upon spotting Morris and his pad. He rushes over and pulls the startled writer away from the door.

I don't move a muscle but try, instead, to appear coolly nonchalant--difficult when you're crouched down with your ear to a keyhole. The stocky Russian eyes me up and down disgustedly and mutters something under his breath. For a moment, I'm afraid he may fling open the door and denounce me to his superiors. I can picture the headlines: "Peace Talks Collapse/Young Reagan Caught Spying."

What started out as a fine idea--a solitary stroll to a pool house for a quiet chat--turns into a circus train. As Gorbachev and the President wend their way down a garden path, the Secret Service and the K.G.B. compete to see who can secure this bush, that hedgerow. Everyone else hurtles around in rough approximation of a soccer riot. The leaders hunker down in the warm glow of a fire while the rest of us shiver outdoors, and the day ends with words of a news blackout. Once again, there will be little of substance for journalists to report, leaving them plenty of time to find tar, feathers and rope, and go hunting with Kennerly and me.

Returning to my hotel, I find messages from what must be every news organization on earth. Collectively summarized, they amount to, "You cheesy bastard, how dare you employ nepotism to scoop us and, by the way, could we have an interview?"

The phone is ringing as I reach my room. A voice I barely recognize as Kennerly's quavers over the line. "Have you gotten your messages yet?" he chokes.

"Yes."

"We're dead men. You know that, don't you?" The poor guy is now gibbering. "I'm sure Newsweek has a contract out on me!"

"Well...."

"Listen," Kennerly says. "We've gotta get out of the country ... fast. I know a casino across the border in France ... seedy joint; nobody goes there. Don't say anything to anybody ... I'll pick you up in 15 minutes." He hangs up.

The next several hours disintegrate into a blur of high-speed driving, roulette wheels and cheap champagne. Kennerly is a wraith, haunted by death, plagued by his bowels, squandering his money on the long-shot hands of dissipated Frenchmen. Not until the wee hours do we risk crossing back into Switzerland, there to dream or confront our nightmares.

•

The President slides his chair back from the table. "Two can play this game," he says, his voice suddenly gone steely. "My football." He motions to Bud McFarlane, who dutifully sets a boxy case on the table.

Out on the window ledge, I hear my teeth begin to chatter, more from fear than from the cold. I think of my wife, the children we may never have, and stare dumbly through the glass at two men plunging headlong into a nuclear inferno. Soon the missiles will leave their silos, carrying with them on vast, arcing trajectories the demise of civilization, the death of humankind. Nuclear winter. Fallout. The End Days. At my side, Sam begins softly chanting what sounds like a prayer.

The President fiddles with a couple of latches, unzips a zipper and opens his case. Slowly, purposefully, he draws out ... a football. "Catch," he says, grinning, and flips the ball to Gorbachev.

Around the table, tense jaws relax ever so slightly. Even the general secretary allows himself a faint smile.

"It's getting a little warm in here, Mickey, don't you think?" The President loosens his tie. "Why don't you and I go out back and toss the old pigskin around? C'mon ... for the Gipper?"

From behind some trash bins, Sam and I watch as the two most powerful men in the world cavort across a deserted back lot, clouds of steam huffing from their mouths. On the side lines, the Secret Service and the K.G.B. have gathered into an impromptu cheerleading squad; "Hit'em high, hit'em low...."

Sam turns to me. "We may as well pack it in and get a good night's sleep. There's nothing more to report on here."

Tiptoeing away, I take one last look over my shoulder. The President fades back and then pump-fakes to Secretary Shultz. Spotting Gorbachev on a sprint-out into the flat, he hollers, "Go long, Mickey! Go long!"

•

"U.S. out of Nicaragua! Get out of Central America!" On his way into the InterContinental following a day's haggling at the Soviet Mission, Shultz glances up at a woman shouting down from the mezzanine balcony. Sam and I look up, too, just in time to see her wing a roll of toilet paper over the Secretary of State's head. Sam is not technically on duty; Jack McQuethy, ABC's State Department correspondent, is covering the Shultz arrival. But while you can take a race horse out of the run, you can't take the run out of a race horse. Sam grabs a camera crew and dashes up the stairs just in time to see the woman carried into a back room by security agents. Back down an escalator he goes and hits the revolving doors at a run.

"Where're you going?" I'm getting an eerie feeling of déjà vu.

"They've gotta take that woman out of here," he yells over his shoulder, "and they're not gonna use the front door!"

In the dark, we race around the side of the building. Sam lunges up an ivycovered slope, his shoes slipping on the wet ground. Behind us, lugging camera and sound equipment, his crew struggles gamely.

Sam is the only reporter on hand as the woman is led peacefully to a squad car. Upon seeing lights and a camera, she launches into her best impression of an abused political prisoner.

I've had better days. As expected, the press is furious that I was allowed inside the château. At the Soviet Mission for the President's arrival, I was heckled from the rooftops by a CNN reporter. Other journalists have resorted to sarcasm. "How're you coping with the news blackout?" they jeer. I can't blame them, really. In a strange country. Jet lag. Bad weather. No access to the big story. They feel cheated--by their editors, by the White House Press Office, by Kennerly, by me.

Where is Kennerly? Last I heard, he'd padlocked himself in his room and slid a note under the door expressing his belief that Newsweek, the K.G.B. and possibly the French Mafia were after him and detailing demands for safe passage out of Switzerland and a safe house in northern Vermont. Obviously, his years as a war correspondent, plus that parasite, have taken their toll.

The fourth floor of the Noga Hilton is command central for ABC. Entire corridors of rooms have been given over to Good Morning America, ABC Evening News, etc. In editing room number one, what he refers to as "the center of the universe," Sam struggles to patch together his segment for the night's broadcast. Images of the day's events flicker across a bank of video monitors. Here is the President wheeling up to the Soviet Mission for the afternoon session and facing a gaggle of reporters. What does he make of Don Regan's suggestion, in a Washington Post interview, that women are not interested in the particulars of arms control? True to form, instead of admitting that Regan has a few screws loose, as well as a porcine perspective on feminism and womanhood, the President stands by his man, explaining, "That's not what he meant." Gorbachev, who has soaked in the exchange, draws a bead on the same question and knocks it out of the ball park. Soviets, 1; U.S., 0. Thanks, Don.

A burst of static, a flurry of video snow. There's Raisa Gorbachev, throwing a lavish tea for the First Lady and wearing a prison matron's black skirt, white shirt and black necktie. What gives? Where's the Givenchy? As it turns out, these will be just about the only television pictures of Raisa broadcast in the U.S.S.R.

Sam plays enfant terrible for most of the evening, occasionally driving his producer, Dave Kaplan, out of the room in a barely controlled rage. What Kaplan does during these interludes, I don't know, but I can just make out the muffled thud of a head banging against a wall. This has not been an easy assignment for any of us--an event of far-reaching consequences that defies in-depth coverage, in a soulless city socked in by inclement weather. Even the Alps are obscured by fog.

It is almost midnight when Sam and I, along with Kaplan and correspondent John Martin, pile into a car and head for a restaurant whose owner has promised to hold dinner for us. There is little traffic. The rows of shops are shut tight. The entire city seems locked in an icy embrace. Only the prostitutes valiantly ply their trade. As we round a corner, one miniskirted gamine wobbles across the street, her stiletto heels accentuating the length of her bare legs. She huddles with a friend in a doorway, sharing a cigarette.

Several bottles of wine later, we leave the restaurant. The car Sam radioed for half an hour earlier is nowhere to be found. He tries the walkie-talkie again but receives only vague, garbled transmissions. In an effort to keep warm, we swing into a misbegotten dance--part ballet grotesque, part Tae Kwon Do. Sam, graceful in the way of some large, flightless birds, is a study in gyrating angles.

There's one day left to go. The President and the general secretary will appear together, smiling, shaking hands. They'll issue a bland joint communiqué, satisfactory to no one but diplomatic bureaucrats. Raisa's limousine will be seen flashing up and down the quai, perhaps in pursuit of one last fashion bargain. But for me, the story ends in a lamplit coda outside a restaurant, in the shadow of a railroad trestle.

Just one more day.

"Heeeyaaah!" Sam shouts and flings himself into the air. His voice echoes from stone facades across the frosted streets.

"The whole affair would have a Zenlike quality--if the ramifications weren't so distressing."