Images '85

The two men by the fireside

in Geneva did not bring on

the millennium, but neither

did they make things worse.

That is more than can be said

for many of the year's other

major events. In the Middle

East, terrorists kept finding

new variations on their

favorite themes, murder

and mayhem. At the eastern

rim of the Pacific, the great

tectonic plates that make up

the earth's crust gave

infinitesimal shrugs that

produced a catastrophic

earthquake and a volcanic

eruption. As with nature,

so with man, whose prowess

as tinkerer, tiller and healer

fell calamitously short: 1985

was the worst year in history

for air fatalities, famine

stalked millions in East

Africa, and no cure had yet

been found for the lethal

disease AIDS. Still 1985 had

its redeeming features, large

and small: the Live Aid

concerts, with an audience of

a billion plus, to help Africa's

starving; the athletes

overtaking records; the

winning smiles on the faces

of a young princess and a

recuperating President.