Brzezinski won't negotiate over sidewalk

MCLEAN, Va., April 9 (UPI) -- Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski does not understand the need for the sidewalk Fairfax County, Va., wants to build across his property.

Only in Washington could an overture for a sidewalk produce responses such as: "What commitments are envisaged, how guaranteed, and by whom regarding the preservation of our privacy by replacing new fencing, tall planting and/or brick wall, etc. What alternative proposals are there regarding the foregoing?"

At some point, it dawned on residents that they were in the middle of the suburban version of a Cold War summit.

Longtime resident Brzezinski, who at 78 remains active at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the District, bought his five-acre estate, with its relatively modest, older house, nearly 30 years ago. He doesn't much care for the mansions going up all around him, saying in an interview that they are "reflective of cultural pretension and pomposity."

And he cannot entirely comprehend the clamor for "trails," the quaint term for sidewalks in the more rarefied corners of Fairfax.