Saturday Morning Live

Not many Americans were both awake and tuned in to CNN, the all-news cable-TV network, early Saturday morning.

But those who were saw something that had never appeared on U.S. screens before: a Soviet leader conducting a press conference in Moscow, live. It was not exactly American-style—the questions were mostly written, not shouted by reporters—but it was close enough to arouse feelings of déjà vu. The Kremlin apparently wanted to make the maximum publicity splash for its official reply to President Reagan's Euromissile proposals. So the Soviet foreign ministry began notifying reporters...