One important problem faced by public speakers is rhetorical situations characterized by a multiplicity of rhetors and audiences. The public speaker is not only speaking to the immediate audience but is also speaking to a larger audience of “rhetorical players” who will potentially respond with public statements or symbolic actions of their own. In situations involving interdependent goals, speakers can potentially “hold each other hostage” by their ability to change the rhetorical context. Based on this dynamic, I argue that rhetors have incentive to engage in subtle rhetorical patterns of accommodation. Public speakers establish rhetorical process rules to coordinate action and meaning. The phenomenon of coordinated rhetorical rules is referred to as a “rhetorical compact.” An interpretive case study involving Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita S. Khrushchev illustrates the interactive aspect of rhetorical compacts and public policy. This analysis concludes that identification of compacts can help explain patterns of rhetoric and policy that would otherwise remain partially unexplained or overlooked.