"Oh, no, nothing so crude. They didn't have to be crude. They just let
him butt his head against a stone wall. Everything he tried was
blocked, or else it didn't lead anywhere. Like this Berlin Conference.
It's a powder keg. Dad gambled everything on going there, forcing the
delegates to face facts, to really put their cards on the table. Ever
since the United Nations fell apart in '72 dad had been trying to get
America and Russia to sit at the same table. But the President cut him
out at the last minute. It was planned that way, to let him get up to
the very brink of it, and then slap him down hard. They did it all
along. This was just the last he could take."