Reporter’s Notebook : A Frigid Vigil Is Warmed by a Gromyko Quip

A total of 924 reporters were assigned to cover the talks between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, the largest press corps assembled here since President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin met in 1955.

For the better part of three days, though, this media army was kept virtually in the dark about the talks. Reporters regularly assigned to the State Department described the news blackout as one of the most effective in memory.

There were lighter moments amid the frustrations of trying to pry some news from the conference participants. Tuesday afternoon, a small, representative group of reporters were admitted briefly to the room where Shultz and Gromyko were preparing for their final session, on the condition that they ask no questions. However, one of the reporters called out, “Have you agreed on a date to resume negotiations?”

As aides jumped in to re-emphasize that there were to be no questions from the press, Gromyko smiled and said, “I confirm only that I’m Gromyko.”

Security for the meetings was massive, and its application varied from the absurd to the ridiculous. On Monday morning, guards at the Soviet Mission gave a stiff nyet to Geneva trash collectors making their weekly rounds.

The following day, a U.S. Secret Service agent carrying a concealed pistol paled visibly when he was casually waved through the security check, including metal detectors, set up at the entrance to the Intercontinental Hotel, where Shultz and the rest of the American delegation were staying.

“I can’t believe what just happened,” the agent mumbled as he entered the elevator.

The coldest winter here in 29 years cooled the enthusiasm of demonstrators hoping to bring their causes to the attention of the idle press corps.

Three determined members of the Catholic peace organization Pax Christi braved temperatures of 15 below zero Sunday to conduct a peace vigil outside the U.N. headquarters building; two Japanese Buddhist monks beat drums outside the U.S. Mission on Tuesday, while a pair of West Germans climbed a tree near the U.S. Mission and hung up a sign calling for peace.

However, only Avital Shcharansky, the wife of the imprisoned Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky, found the right formula. She rented a suite in the warmth of the Intercontinental Hotel and drew a packed house for a press conference.

The weather was also a factor in the media’s effort to cover the talks.

After standing in bitter cold for half an hour awaiting Shultz’s arrival at the airport Sunday morning, one reporter tried to take down Shultz’s arrival statement and found that the ink in his pen had frozen.

After waiting outside the U.S. Mission for the prolonged final Gromyko-Shultz session to end Tuesday night, a member of a French television crew was taken to a hospital suffering from hypothermia, subnormal body temperature.

The TV people had other problems, too. They agreed to pay 200 Swiss francs an hour to have the city start up its landmark fountain, “Le Jet d’Eau,” but it developed that the water had frozen in the pipes.

The chaos and confusion attendant on any such important visit caused hardly a ripple among the unflappable Swiss. Nor was there any lapse in the frugality that underpins the country’s wealth.

A reporter telephoning his editors in the United States from the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel was cut off after six minutes.

“The bill had reached 40 francs, monsieur,” the operator explained. “We must be sure you can pay before we give you the line back.”