Scores of high-ranking guests attending the funeral of Konrad Adenauer were posing for pictures outside Bonn's Villa Hammerschmidt, the official home of German Presidents. Suddenly a photographer asked Lyndon Johnson to shake hands with Charles de Gaulle. A moment of embarrassed silence. Then Johnson instinctively smiled and reached out his hand. The imperious French President, whose relations with the U.S. have been steadily cooling, did likewise, and the two hands hovered in a brief clasp. The two men had just started to withdraw their hands when West German President Heinrich Lübke, as if...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
