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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 15, 1984
Yes, I would like to still get The PLAIN TRUTH. I was getting it
when my husband passed away and it helped me to get over the de
pressed feeling I had. I knew God took him out of his suffering
for he had cancer and also had to have surgery on the spleen and
gall bladder. Before he went back to the hospital he told me that
if God wanted him to live he left it in His hands, but if not he
was ready to go for he had made peace with his Maker. He also
read The PLAIN TRUTH and loved it. Thank you for publishing this
magazine.
I have M.S.
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survive."
Mrs. L.M. (Saluda, SC)
[multiple sclerosis] and The PLAIN TRUTH helps me
J.H. (Randolph,
MA)
Watching you on TV has given me a different outlook on life. I am
a recovering alcoholic that had lost his faith in everything. I
want to thank you.
ON THE WORLD SCENE
J.A. (Michigan City, IN)
--Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center
LONDON ECONOMIC SUMMIT: PROBLEMS POSTPONED
Dateline: Paris, France
The London Economic Summit is past history. The leaders of the Free World's
seven democratic industrial powers--the United States, Japan, West Germany,
France, Italy, Britain and Canada--have returned home, some to hot, politi
cal challenges. Departed too, are the about 3,500 accredited reporters,
including this writer.
What was accomplished at this 10th annual summit? Little of prime impor
tance. But then in some ways, that was to be expected. Shortly before the
conference was to begin, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain,
host of this year's meeting, cautioned reporters not to expect too much
from the three-day affair. That way, she said, they would not be disap
pointed.
After the conference was over, a senior U.S. diplomatic official commented:
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The final result was nonspectacular, which is the way summits are supposed
to work. What counted at the London Summit was not the agreements or lack
thereof, but the process." The
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process,
1
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in fact, does have some impor
tance in itself. Mrs. Thatcher also stressed that if these annual
meetings
had not taken place during the tumultuous years since 1975, the world econ
omy could likely be in much worse shape. Without these summits, she im
plied, trade wars could have already become a grim reality.
It is pretty hard to start wars, trade or otherwise, when leaders, as long
as they are basically reasonable people in the first place (no Khomeinis or
Kadafis), have the opportunity on a regular basis to speak to each other
behind closed doors and face to face.
Political Concerns
Nonetheless one had the feeling that nearly all of the leaders were only
"half there
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in London. Nearly all of them were, in effect looking over