Let’s Make a Deal |

By Bill Lee

Think of memorable summit meetings in modern history (at least from the Western perspective): Hitler and Chamberlain in Munich in 1939; the Yalta and Potsdam summits/conferences in 1945; the Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debates” in 1959; Kennedy and Khrushchev in 1961; Nixon and Mao in 1972. Aside from the individual results of each — Chamberlain bowing to Hitler, the Big Three dividing up the post-war world, Nixon and Kennedy confronting the Russian bear, and Nixon “opening up” China — they were all significant in bringing adversaries together (Stalin could be called an adversary, I think) or a leader to meet the Other.

They also had in common the fact that the contents of the discussions were fairly reliably recorded for later confirmation; indeed, the Nixon-Khrushchev encounters were filmed by television cameras. Naturally, a lot is unknown, and in previous summits leading up to World War I, nothing is known publicly because all the European leaders were related to each other. When Kaiser Wilhelm went to England for the yacht races to compete against Uncle Bertie (later King Edward VII), presumably they chatted about the relations between Germany and England, but there were no official records. However, as Europe democratized, summit meetings certainly became more open.

Fast forward to today, and the much ballyhooed summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Billed as a possible opportunity for Trump to confront Putin on Russia’s election meddling and annexation of Crimea, it did not meet expectations. Or did it? No one knows because, excluding two interpreters, there were only four people in the room: Trump, Putin, T. Rex Tillerson, and Sergey Lavrov, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if there ever was one. Tillerson and Lavrov gave differing post-summit accounts of Trump’s questioning of Putin about the election, and there was talk of a Syria ceasefire agreement, but who knows for certain? Looking at who was at that meeting, does anyone think that a factual account of what was discussed will ever emerge? Compared to past big-time summits, this one was hermetically sealed.

As mentioned above, another characteristic of notable summits has been the bringing together of adversarial opposites — Kennedy vs. Khrushchev, Nixon vs. Mao — in character, temperament, and ideology. Trump and Putin, though, seem to be very kindred spirits. Both like and are good at making money, though Putin is reportedly around ten times richer than Trump. Both are secretive, have a flexible grasp of the truth, and are very cunning. (That of course could be said about a lot of leaders.) No one would argue that better relations between the two biggest nuclear powers are not wanted, but consider how different this summit is from others, past and present.

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