Former U.S. Secretary of State remembers his eminent Soviet counterpart

By Henry Kissinger

Andrei Gromyko and I were sometimes adversaries and sometimes partners. I had enormous respect for his competence, for his dedication. And with the passage of time I developed great affection for him. He was a man who was always prepared, who always knew his subject. I found him totally reliable in his assertions. When he was asked by his government to change a previous position he did so with enormous pain but with extreme ability.

We worked together in a complex period. When the administration in which I served came to office, the crisis in Czechoslovakia - the movement of Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia - was six months old. The Cuban missile crisis was still within vivid memory, and so we were in a succession of crises piling one on top of the other.

I'm sure, on the Soviet side there were similar examples of crises that, in the Soviet view, were generated by the United States. We were involved in the Vietnam War at that time and our country was divided on whether the administration was really dedicated to peace.

Clive Davis, who does not allow comments on his brilliant blog, draws attention to this article by Douglas Bailey in The Boston Globe with the self-explanatory heading: "Got a comment? Keep it to yourself."

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 although I can see why The Guardian did not allow comments on Cherie Booth's article today, which begins:

When the International Criminal Court began in 2002, there was a widespread hope that those guilty of appalling crimes against humanity would finally be brought to justice.

This was made in our garden today with the help of two neighbour's boys. I stayed in the shade. That is what executive producers do.

You can't be me, I'm taken

NEW YORK (Reuters) - French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy sang at a concert in New York to commemorate Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday -- the first time she has sung in public since marrying French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Dressed in black trouser suit, Bruni-Sarkozy strummed guitar alongside former Eurythmics musician Dave Stewart as they performed a duet on Saturday night, singing a slower version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" while the French president smiled and clapped sitting in the audience.

After several months of focusing on her family, her garden and inspiring young people, Mrs. Obama is stepping into more wonkish terrain. She is toughening her message and talking more openly about influencing public policy as she works to integrate her efforts more closely with those of policy makers in the West Wing.

In June, Mrs. Obama traveled to San Francisco with Melody C. Barnes, the president's domestic policy adviser, for the start of the administration's initiative to promote volunteerism.

A week later, she went to a Washington clinic with the director of the Health Resources and Services Administration to announce the release of stimulus money for clinics. This month, her policy director joined a new interagency working group, including health, agriculture and housing officials, that will develop policy, legislation and public outreach to combat obesity. ...

Mrs. Obama's advisers say this is a natural progression. After settling her family into the White House, the first lady could more easily turn to the garden and then a discussion of obesity, the importance of preventive care and corresponding government policies and legislation, they say.

The shift also coincides with Mrs. Obama's decision in June to choose Ms. Sher, her longtime friend, to replace Jackie Norris as her chief of staff. At the time of that announcement, Ms. Sher, who was Mrs. Obama's boss at the University of Chicago Medical Center, was working on health care issues as an associate counsel to the president.