Barbara loves broccoli. She's tried to make me eat it. She eats it all the time herself. So
she can go out and meet the caravan. [fn 12]
These statements were an illumination in themselves, since the internal evidence pointed
conclusively to a choleric infantile tantrum being experienced by the president. But what
could have occasioned an outburst on broccoli, of all things? Slightly more than a year
later, when it became known that Bush was suffering from Basedow's disease, some
observers recalled the broccoli outburst. For it turns out that broccoli, along with cabbage
and some other vegetables, belongs to a category of foods called goitrogens. Some
schools of medicine recommend frequent servings of broccoli in order to help cool off an
overactive thyroid. [fn 13] There was much speculation that Bush's hyperthyroid
syndrome had been diagnosed by March-April, or perhaps earlier, and that broccoli had
been appearing more often on the White House menu as part of a therapy to return Bush's
thyroid and metabolism to more normal functioning. Was the celebrated thyroid outburst
a case of an irascible president, in the grip of psychopathological symptoms his
physicians were attempting to treat, rebelling against his doctors' orders?
At their spring summit, Bush and Gorbachov continued to disagree about whether united
Germany would be a member of NATO. Much time was spent on strategic arms, the
Vienna conventional arms reduction talks, and the other aspects of the emerging
European architecture, where their mutual counter-revolutionary committments went
very deep. Both stressed that they had taken their Malta consultations as their point of
departure. Bush's hostility to the cause of Lithuania and the other Baltic republics, now
subject to crippling economic blockade by Moscow, was writ large. The central
exchanges of this summit were doubtless those which occurred in the bucolic isolation of
Camp David among a small shirtsleeve group that comprehended Bush, Gorbachov,
Shevardnadze, Baker, and Scowcroft. Bush was unusually closed-mouthed, but the very
loquacious Gorbachov volunteered that they had come to talk about the "planet and its
flash-points" and the "regional issues." There was the distinct impression that these talks
were sweeping and futurological in their scope. In his press conference the next day,
Gorbachov had glowing praise for these restricted secret talks: "I would like, in
particular, to emphasize the importance of our dialogue at Camp David, where we talked
during the day yesterday. And this is a new phase in strengthening mutual understanding
and trust between us. We really discussed all world problems. We compared our political
perspectives, and we did that in an atmosphere of frankness, constructive atmosphere, an
atmosphere of growing trust. We discussed specifically such urgent international issues
as the situation in the Middle East, Afghanistan, southern Africa, Cambodia, central
America. That is just some of what we discussed. I would not want to go into detail right
now. I think you will probably seek to get clarification on this, but anyway I think the
Camp David dialogue was very important." [fn 14]
Gorbachov also had lengthy answers about the discontent in the Arab world over the
Soviet policy of mass emigrations of Russian Jews who were obliged to settle in Israel.
For the Middle East was indeed approaching crisis. In the words of one observer, "Bush
and Gorbachov stirred the boiling pot of Middle East tensions with their press conference
remarks, forgetting the damage that seemingly remote forces can do to the grandest of