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Vice President Bush had traveled to Moscow to affirm President Reagan's new commitment to improved superpower relations. He went into his private meeting with Chernenko wearing a tiny lapel pin from the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council that showed crossed American and Soviet flags. Bush described his 30-minute chat as "very tempered, very reasonable" and noted that he was returning home "with a certain sense of optimism." According to the Vice President, Chernenko seemed self-assured and responded without using notes. "Mr. Chernenko conducted the meeting without turning from right to left for assistance," said Bush. "He gave the impression of a man who has the potential to be a strong leader."
When asked if the White House was pressing for a summit with the new Soviet leader, Bush would say only that the personal letter from the President, typed in English, that he had handed to Chernenko made no mention of "a date or specifics for a meeting." Meanwhile, Reagan, who had visited the Soviet embassy in Washington on Monday to sign a book of condolences, was more outspoken in dampening speculation about a superpower summit. In a newspaper interview, he opposed the notion of a "get-acquainted" summit. Said the President: "You should have an agenda to have such a meeting that lays out the issues that we need to discuss."
Encouraged by the warm reception she received during a visit to Hungary earlier this month, Britain's Thatcher was also intent on improving relations with the Soviet Union. In her meeting with the leadership, she managed to strike a subtle balance between the stiffly formal Kremlin protocol and the more relaxed style of Western diplomatic gestures. TIME has learned that Thatcher, in consultation with Washington, hopes to expand bilateral meetings between East-bloc and Western foreign ministers in order to lay the groundwork for a possible superpower summit along the lines of the 1974 meeting between President Gerald Ford and Brezhnev in Vladivostok. Said Thatcher: "If there is to be progress on arms control, it will come not through negotiating skill alone but because a broader understanding has been reached."
French Premier Pierre Mauroy came away from his session with Chernenko, whom he had met in Paris two years ago, confident that Soviet-French relations were on the mend. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had the feeling that the new Soviet leadership was "weighing its words." Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau saw hope in the fact that "there was a repetition of the use of the word détente and a real continuity with the Brezhnev spirit." But Chernenko gave Western leaders no hint that the Soviet Union was about to change its position on the new NATO missiles in Europe. Reports on Chernenko's round of meetings carried by the official news agency TASS were decidedly more guarded than most Western assessments.