Defining Détente: NATO’s Struggle for Identity, 1967-1984

by

Susan Colbourn

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto

© Copyright by Susan Elizabeth Colbourn 2018 Defining Détente: NATO’s Struggle for Identity, 1967-1984

Susan Elizabeth Colbourn

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of History University of Toronto

2018 Abstract

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defined détente as one of its central tasks with the Harmel Report of December 1967, alongside the Alliance’s traditional mission of defending the West. After a series of historic improvements in the early 1970s, however, détente’s fortunes faded. East-West relations deteriorated over the second half of the 1970s and into the 1980s, leading many to dub the period a “Second Cold War.”

What, then, did this mean for the Atlantic Alliance and the double philosophy of détente and defense staked out in the Harmel Report? Defining Détente: NATO’s Struggle for

Identity, 1967-1984 explores détente’s contested nature and its various meanings for policy-makers and publics in the United States, Canada, and across Western Europe.

Détente was an ongoing source of tension in transatlantic relations, but neither allied disagreements nor the marked deterioration of East-West relations changed the Alliance’s overall strategy. Détente and defense remained vital to NATO’s posture for the remainder of the Cold War and well into the post–Cold War era.

ii Acknowledgments

This dissertation, like so many, would not have been possible without the support of others. Many thanks to my dissertation committee: to Robert Bothwell, whose faith in me and what this project could become was unflagging; to Lynne Viola, who always encouraged me to take my ideas in new directions and to just keep writing; and, to Timothy Sayle, who listened to my ramblings and generously shared documents and ideas from his own work. I am grateful for their suggestions, advice, and encouragement throughout. Thanks also to Thomas Schwartz and John English for their comments on the final draft. Any omissions or oversights that remain are mine alone. Support from a number of institutions made it possible to undertake this project. Archival research was possible thanks to the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, the Scowcroft Institute at Texas A&M University, the John A. Adams Center at the Virginia Military Institute, the Simons Foundation, and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (now Global Affairs Canada), as well as the School of Graduate Studies, the Munk School of Global Affairs, and the Department of History (with a special thanks to the Jeanne Armour endowment) at the University of Toronto. The Summer Institute on Conducting Archival Research (SICAR) gave me tips on how to wrangle all of the documents collected along the way, while the organizers and participants of the 2015 Nuclear History Boot Camp and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)’s 2016 Summer Institute gave me ample suggestions about where this project might go. To all of the archivists and declassification specialists who made it possible to access these records, I am very grateful. Thanks also go to Arne Hofmann and Jeremi Suri. Without Arne, I would never have undertaken this adventure in the first place. Without Jeremi, I never would have become a historian of NATO. It only seems fitting that both of their doctoral dissertations —and the books they later became—ended up shaping this project in meaningful ways.

iii Friends and colleagues at the University of Toronto made this process an enjoyable one, especially Jennifer Bonder, Cathleen Clark, Caroline Cormier, Katie Davis, Laurie Drake, Ross Huyskamp, Maris Rowe-McCulloch, and Erica Toffoli. Thanks also to many historian friends made along the way, including Andrea Chiampan, Markian Dobczansky, Mathias Haeussler, Asa McKercher, Ryan Musto, Graeme Thompson, and Anna Whittington. Lastly, thanks to my family. To Charles Colbourn, Karen Colbourn, Sarah Colbourn, and Violet Syrotiuk, thanks for always reminding me that this was possible. To Simon Miles, your love was a constant source of encouragement, your company brightened many of my research trips, and your brainstorming and editing made this a far better dissertation. Glad we could do this whole dissertation thing together—it wouldn’t have been the same without you.

iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Acronyms vii Introduction 1 Crises, East and West 5 Chapter Breakdown 14 Chapter 1: Arm to Parley 18 Future Tasks 22 Making Détente Multilateral 34 Ostpolitik and Détente 49 Conclusion 56 Chapter 2: Falling Behind? 58 Transatlantic Troubles 60 Détente and its Discontents 69 Meeting the Soviet Challenge 83 Conclusion 93 Chapter 3: It Takes Two 94 Killer Warheads 97 A Modernizing Mission 109 Parallel Paths 116 Conclusion 129 Chapter 4: Carrots and Sticks 131 The Greatest Threat to Peace 133 “Solidarity Does Not Mean Uniformity” 143 Enter Reagan 155 The Sky is Falling 172 Conclusion 185 Chapter 5: Revisiting Harmel 187 Out of Step 190

v Eureka 199 The Eye of the Storm 205 Even More Problems 210 The Specter of 1983 214 Conclusion 224 Chapter 6: “No Euroshimas” 228 The Nuclear Nightmare 230 An “Existential Stress-Test” 246 Staying the Course 251 Back to the Future 259 Conclusion 272 Conclusion: The Irony of the Harmel Report 275 Accidents and Ambiguities 277 Chronic Problems 280 Bibliography 282 Archival Collections 282 Document Publications 286 Media 288 Memoirs and Diaries 289 Articles and Books 290 Unpublished Manuscripts 302

vi Acronyms

AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

APAG Atlantic Policy Advisory Group

CDE Conference on Disarmament in Europe

CDU Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union)

CFE conventional forces in Europe

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

DPC Defence Planning Committee

END European Nuclear Disarmament

ERW enhanced-radiation warhead

FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FDP Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party)

ICBMs intercontinental ballistic missiles

INF intermediate-range nuclear forces

LRTNF long-range theater nuclear forces

LTDP Long-Term Defense Program

MBFR mutual and balanced force reduction

MIRVs multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles

NAC North Atlantic Council

vii NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NPG Nuclear Planning Group

NSC National Security Council

SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander Europe

SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

SCC Special Coordination Committee

SCG Special Consultative Group

SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe

SLBMs submarine-launched ballistic missiles

SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany)

USICA United States Information Communication Agency

viii Introduction

“What is détente? What is the meaning of this mysterious French word which has no equivalent in either the English or, more significantly, the Russian language?”1 — Joseph Luns, 1976

“That’s détente, comrade. You don’t have it, I don’t have it!”2 — James Bond, 1981

Détente had no universal definition. Translated from French, the word described a relaxation or loosening of tensions. In the context of the Cold War struggle, such a relaxation encompassed a wide range of issues. David Owen, the British foreign secretary in the late 1970s, once described it as “an immensely complex process, comprising innumerable strands on different levels.” Détente, at least as Owen defined it, encompassed East-West dialogue, economic relations, cultural connections, an ongoing ideological competition between capitalism and communism, and “military vigilance.”3

Some historians have characterized détente as nothing more than a perpetuation of the Cold War. “The ‘peace’ created by détente,” Jeremi Suri argues, “entrenched the social and political status quo.”4 John Lewis Gaddis takes this argument even further,

1 Joseph M.A.H. Luns, “The Present State of East-West Relations,” NATO Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr. 1976): 3. 2 For Your Eyes Only, directed by John Glen (1981). 3 Owen remarks, Annual Banquet of the Diplomatic and Commonwealth Writers Association, March 3, 1977, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), RG 59, Office of the Deputy Secretary, Records of Warren Christopher, Box 26, “CSCE – Allies” folder.

4 Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 216.

1 2

contending that the Cold War’s end was directly linked to the death of détente; “because détente perpetuated—and had been meant to perpetuate—the Cold War,” Gaddis concluded, “only killing détente could end the Cold War.”5 But did Ronald Reagan actually kill détente? To be sure, he moved away from détente as it had been envisioned by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Reagan, as he so often made clear, was not interested in an accommodation with the Soviet Union designed to manage US decline.

Did that mean Reagan ‘killed’ détente? Or simply that he envisioned it in a different form, adapted to the circumstances of the 1980s and to the shortcomings and domestic backlash engendered by Nixon and Kissinger’s earlier efforts? More importantly, would

Reagan’s policies have mattered much if Mikhail Gorbachev had not appeared on the scene?

European historians have, by and large, rejected Gaddis’s characterization as one which overlooks Europeans (including Gorbachev) and their role in bringing about an end to the Cold War.6 Conceptually, as no shortage of histories have already

5 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 217.

6 Gaddis’ treatment of détente was one symptom of the overall US-centrism of The Cold War: A New History. Critics, most notably Tony Judt, took Gaddis to task after its publication for the book’s overwhelming focus on the Cold War as seen from and experienced by the United States. “John Lewis Gaddis,” as Judt put it in his review in The New York Review of Books, “has written a history of America’s cold war: as seen from America, as experienced in America, and told in a way most agreeable to many American readers.” One of his main contributions—the notion of a ‘Long Peace’—also spoke to this approach, as Gaddis overlooked and ignored conflicts in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Tony Judt, “A Story Still to Be Told,” The New York Review of Books (March 23, 2006), http:// www.nybooks.com/articles/2006/03/23/a-story-still-to-be-told/; Stephan Kieninger, Dynamic Détente: The United States and Europe, 1964–1975 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016), xvii-xviii; Geir Lundestad, “The Cold War According to John Gaddis,” Cold War History, Vol. 6, No. 4 (November 2006): 535-42. 3

demonstrated, détente had crucial roots in Europe: the thinking of Charles de Gaulle7 or

Willy Brandt,8 to name the strategy’s most obvious champions, responded to the realities of the Cold War in the hopes of one day changing them. “We know […] that this division will not vanish overnight,” Willy Brandt wrote in one 1968 article, “and that, as far as one can tell, it will be overcome only in conjunction with a general improvement in East-

West relations in Europe.”9 Nor were efforts to improve East-West relations confined to high politics. Citizens on both sides of the Iron Curtain pursued grassroots initiatives to cultivate personal ties between East and West, intent on developing and sustaining their own “détente from below.”10

Writing in 2017, Oliver Bange and Poul Villaume lamented the failure of what they termed “Anglo-American” historiography to grapple with détente in any meaningful way. More often than not, Bange and Villaume rightly note, détente is dispatched with quickly in this literature, left for dead in 1979-1980. Here, they identify a central paradox: if détente died and gave way to a “Second Cold War” in the early 1980s, how and why did the Cold War end peacefully before the decade was through?11

7 Marie-Pierre Rey, La tentation du rapprochement: France et URSS à l’heure de la détente, 1964-1974 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1991); Marc Trachtenberg, “The de Gaulle Problem,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 2012): 81-92, esp. footnote 38. 8 Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer, eds., Ostpolitik, 1969-1974: European and global responses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Arne Hofmann, The Emergence of Détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the formation of Ostpolitik (London: Routledge, 2007). 9 Willy Brandt, “German Policy Toward the East,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 46, Issue 3 (April 1968): 477. 10 Mary Kaldor, “Détente From Below…,” New Statesman & Society, Vol. 1, No. 4 (July 1988): 26.

11 Oliver Bange and Paul Villaume, “Introduction,” in The Long Détente: Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s, ed. Oliver Bange and Poul Villaume (Budapest: CEU Press, 2017), 1-4. 4

To muddy the waters yet further, the term détente often serves as a chronological marker. It has been used as a convenient shorthand, associated above all with the relaxation between the superpowers in the late 1960s and early 1970s.12 Histories of the

Cold War are filled with these détentes, both fleeting and more enduring. The ‘spirit of

Geneva’ seemed to promise a possible breakthrough in 1955, as did the petite détente of

1963 and the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty.13 One 1975 study took it even further, outlining a half-century of détentes between Moscow and Washington, dating back to the “Lenin détente” of 1920.14 But détente was more than just a phase of the Cold

War or a state of affairs between East and West, it was a grand strategy which brought together numerous issues and actors. Attempts to improve East-West relations comprised political, economic, social, ideological, military, and humanitarian concerns. Détente encompassed everything from the reunification of families to the reduction of nuclear arsenals.

It was, at once, a process aimed to transform people’s everyday lives and to manage the international system writ large. It responded to the nuclear stalemate emerging between the superpowers and to the continued division of the European

12 A prime example of this temporal use is The Cambridge History of the Cold War. The three volumes are entitled Origins, Crises and Détente, and Endings, respectively. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, three volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 13 On the Geneva Summit of 1955 and the prospect of détente, see Günter Bischof and Saki Dockrill, eds., Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 2000); Klaus Larres and Kenneth Osgood, The Cold War after Stalin’s Death: A Missed Opportunity for Peace? (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). On the little détente of 1963, see Vojtech Mastny, “The 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: A Missed Opportunity for Détente?,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2008): 3-25.

14 Gerald L. Steibel, Détente: Promises and Pitfalls (New York: Crane, Russak & Company, 1975), 4-13. 5

continent.15 In practice, the connections created and sustained in the name of détente were myriad; scientific exchanges, trade relations, and activist networks brought together individuals and developed personal ties that criss-crossed the Iron Curtain. Détente’s ambiguities left it open to interpretation, which could be a strength, yet its competing definitions and priorities often created confusion.

Crises, East and West

The Cold War was over, or so many optimistic observers concluded in the early 1970s. A string of diplomatic breakthroughs seemed to have ushered in a new phase in East-West relations. It was a rapid “sea-change” in relations.16 At summit after summit, Richard

Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed a flurry of agreements. The two leaders imposed limits on strategic nuclear forces and laid down basic principles to govern US-Soviet relations. Willy Brandt’s Federal Republic of Germany reached historic accords with its neighbors to the East; the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw codified the post–World War

II frontiers and recognized the existence of two Germanies—for the time being. Brandt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.

15 Arne Hofmann, “Small steps towards new frontiers? Ideas, concepts and the emergence of a détente strategy in the thinking of Willy Brandt and John F. Kennedy,” Historical Research, Vol. 79, No. 205 (August 2006): 431-2. More detailed discussions of the nuclear revolution of the early 1960s and its links to détente can be found in Suri, Power and Protest, 7-43; Andreas Wenger and Jeremi Suri, “At the Crossroads of Diplomatic and Social History,” Cold War History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2001): 1-42.

16 “Paper Prepared in the Department of State,” n.d. [1970], Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1969–1976, vol. XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2008), doc. 110. 6

By the decade’s end, there was little reason for optimism. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, along with the sharp response it provoked from Washington, seemed to signal the death of détente. Relations between the two superpowers now seemed far more confrontational, a perception made all the worse by

Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in November 1980. Reagan had made a political name for himself denouncing détente and embracing aggressively anti-Soviet rhetoric. Superpower relations, it seemed, were headed from bad to worse. Events in the early 1980s all but confirmed these fears. Soviet forces remained in Afghanistan, martial law was declared in Poland, and arms control talks between the United States and the

Soviet Union went nowhere. Moscow and Washington traded recriminations (and grain), but the dialogue between them appeared non-existent. Citizens throughout the West worried about the prospect of nuclear annihilation, by accident or on purpose.

There is no shortage of literature dealing with the deterioration of East-West relations during the late 1970s and into the 1980s. Much of what has been written distinguishes between two strains of détente, implicitly if not explicitly.17 What eroded over the second half of the 1970s before finally collapsing in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the rapprochement between Moscow and Washington:

17 Bange and Villaume reject the argument that the period between 1981 and 1985 constituted a “Second Cold War,” arguing that “thanks primarily to the efforts of the Europeans there was simply no relapse into the political, economic and communicative autism of the early 1950s.” Bange and Villaume, “Introduction,” 1-18. 7

superpower détente.18 European détente, by contrast, continued well into the 1980s, kept alive by Europeans on both sides of the Iron Curtain until Reagan found a man with whom he could “do business” in Mikhail Gorbachev.19

It was never that simple. Détente could not be easily untangled, cleanly divided into superpower and European strains. After all, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO) had defined détente as one of its central tasks with the “Report on the Future

Tasks of the Alliance” in December 1967, the so-called Harmel Report, named for the

Belgian foreign minister, Pierre Harmel, who tabled the proposal. Scholars make passing reference to the Report’s continued relevance after 1967; its double philosophy of détente and defense is cited as the foundation for NATO’s 1979 Dual-Track Decision and for the

Alliance’s survival after the Cold War came to an end.20 Few, however, have paid

18 The classic work on superpower relations during the 1970s, Raymond Garthoff’s Détente and Confrontation, includes a final section entitled “The End of Détente” on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its aftermath: Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, revised edition (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1994), 977-1119. See also Olav Njølstad, “The Collapse of Superpower Détente, 1975–1980,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 3, Endings, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 135-55; Peter Wallensteen, “American-Soviet Détente: What Went Wrong?,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1985): 1. Not all agree on this chronology: Odd Arne Westad had argued that superpower détente lasted from 1968 to 1975. Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 194-206. 19 Oliver Bange, “‘Keeping détente alive’: inner-German relations under Helmut Schmidt and Erich Honecker, 1974–1982,” in The Crisis of Détente in Europe: From Helsinki to Gorbachev, ed. Leopoldo Nuti (London: Routledge, 2008), 230-43; Poul Villaume and Odd Arne Westad, eds., Perforating the Iron Curtain: European Détente, Transatlantic Relations, and the Cold War, 1965–1985 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010). On the lasting nature of European détente broadly, see Jussi M. Hanhimäki, “Détente in Europe, 1962–1975,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 2, Crises and Détente, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 198-218.

20 Helga Haftendorn, “The Harmel Report and its impact on German Ostpolitik,” in The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–75, ed. Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou (London: Routledge, 2008), 111; Joe Renouard and D. Nathan Vigil, “The Quest for Leadership in a Time of Peace: Jimmy Carter and Western Europe, 1977–1981,” in The Strained Alliance: U.S.-European Relations from Nixon to Carter, ed. Matthias Schulz and Thomas A. Schwartz (Washington and Cambridge: German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press, 2010), 310-1. 8

attention to the evolution of this dual strategy in the years following the Harmel Report.

As East-West relations seemed rockier, what did the commitment to détente and defense mean for the Atlantic Alliance and its policies? Growing pessimism about détente posed a direct challenge for the Western allies who had sold NATO to their publics as “an alliance for peace,” not for preparing for war.21

How did NATO member states define and redefine the concept of détente, taking into account strategic, cultural, economic, and domestic political questions? This dissertation explores the contested nature of détente throughout the Atlantic Alliance, focusing on the period often associated with its decline. I take a long view of what has been termed the “crisis of détente,” covering the period from December 1967 and the adoption of the Harmel Report through to 1984, when the Alliance reaffirmed the double philosophy in the Washington Statement on East-West Relations.22 I rely on a pericentric approach to paint a more detailed picture of détente, bridging the divides between

21 Highlighting NATO’s importance as a guarantor of peace was already a mainstay of allied public diplomacy by the time the Western allies endorsed the Harmel Report in 1967. Publications produced and circulated by the Public Diplomacy Division during the 1950s and 1960s pointed to this theme with titles like “NATO Means Peace” and “NATO: Insurance for Peace.” For some examples of these publications, see “NATO Means Peace,” 1955, Archives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), http:// archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137318/0064_NATO_Means_Peace_1955-1956_ENG.pdf; “NATO: I n s u r a n c e f o r P e a c e , ” 1 9 5 5 , N AT O , http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/ 1/3/137316/0070_NATO_Insurance_for_Peace_1955-1956_ENG.pdf; “NATO: Insurance for Peace,” 1964, N A T O , http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/ 1/3/137495/0105_NATO_Insurance_for_Peace_1964_ENG.pdf.

22 Leopoldo Nuti, ed., The Crisis of Détente in Europe: From Helsinki to Gorbachev, 1975-1985 (London: Routledge, 2008). 9

superpower and European détente and contributing to a growing body of scholarship on a “long détente.”23

Détente, I argue, was an ongoing source of tension in transatlantic relations. But regardless of the actual state of East-West relations, it remained vital to the Atlantic

Alliance. This is not to suggest that the Western allies ever agreed on what détente meant.

Far from it. Transatlantic debates over détente were near constant, as the allies fought over the pace, priorities, and, at times, even the value of improving relations with the

East. But NATO’s policies, be it the allies’ nuclear strategy or approach to public diplomacy, continued to depend on the double philosophy of détente and defense as outlined in the Harmel Report.

Pursuing better relations with the East contributed to and amplified existing imbalances within the transatlantic partnership. Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were often understood as the framework for the process as a whole, a source of frustration among the Alliance’s other members. Bilateral negotiations, such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), were often seen as a litmus test for East-

West relations as a whole.24 It reinforced existing tropes about how the Alliance worked.

The United States was a superpower with global interests; the Western Europeans and the

23 On using pericentric approaches to understand the Cold War, see Tony Smith, “New Bottles for New Wine: A Pericentric Framework for the Study of the Cold War,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Fall 2000): 567-91. Gottfried Niedhart proposes the idea of a “short Cold War” and a “long détente” to understand the confrontation between East and West, moving away from the use of ‘Cold War’ as a blanket term to encompass the whole period between 1945 and 1990: Gottfried Niedhart, “East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente,” in The Long Détente, 21-30.

24 Kastl report, “Objectives of, Obstacles to and Prospects for Détente,” November 19, 1974, NATO, C- M(74)81; Kastl report, “Détente,” November 27, 1974, NATO, C-M(74)81(2nd revise). 10

Canadians were regional powers. Europeans could remain invested in détente, many in the United States concluded, because they were willing to ignore Soviet activities elsewhere in the world. Washington’s pre-occupation with the Soviet Union’s activities from Latin America to Southeast Asia, however, only underscored European fears that they were no longer as important to US foreign policy objectives and contributed to recurring anxieties about Washington’s commitment to the continent.

The Harmel Report’s two tasks, or so it seemed in the early 1980s, were divisible.

Defense would be Washington’s task first and foremost. It was a logical assumption:

NATO’s core premise was that the United States would serve as the guarantor of transatlantic security, with all of the allies under Washington’s nuclear umbrella. Détente accordingly would be the purview of the Europeans, whose interest in détente hardly came as a surprise. The Cold War struggle had divided their continent, their families, and their friendships. For Germans, the divisions were even more personal. Hans-Dietrich

Genscher, who served as foreign minister in both the Schmidt and Kohl governments, was a prime example. Born and raised in Halle, he had fled the German Democratic

Republic after the 1953 East German uprising.25

Earlier times of optimism about détente had also reflected the balance of power within the Alliance. Fears abounded about a possible superpower condominium. What if

Moscow and Washington struck a grand bargain at the expense of the other Western

25 George Shultz later recalled that this was one of the first things Genscher mentioned in their first meeting. Shultz commented in his memoirs that “Genscher worried continuously about the Germans in the Soviet Union as well as in East Germany.” George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), 149. 11

allies’ interests? By the early 1970s, as the Federal Republic’s Ostpolitik gained momentum, others worried that the West Germans might go too far in their relations with the East. What if Bonn fell back into old German habits, signing another rapprochement with the Soviet Union as they had in the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922 or the Molotov-

Ribbentrop Pact of 1939?26 That these fears of abandonment revolved around the United

States and the Federal Republic was no coincidence. If NATO had been designed to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down, détente seemed to threaten all three components of Lord Ismay’s oft-quoted adage.

As East-West relations stalled in the middle of the decade, fears that one of the allies might sell the others out gave way to concerns about the prospect of stagnation. If no breakthroughs could be made, what would happen? More importantly, who would be blamed for the failure to improve relations with the Soviet Union and the Eastern

European states? In the corridors of NATO and across the Alliance, officials worried about being held responsible for détente’s poor fortunes.

Public perceptions mattered. Allied officials chronically worried that NATO was losing ground with its publics. Perhaps, they speculated, the organization had become a victim of its own success. Others blamed a new generation who could not remember the challenges of the 1940s. Without the formative experiences of World War II, the Marshall

26 The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement between Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia, signed on the margins of the Genoa Conference. In it, the two states—both outcasts, ostracized from the European state system after World War I—normalized their diplomatic relations, renounced claims stemming from the war, and began secret military cooperation. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a neutrality agreement struck between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on the eve of the Second World War, accompanied by a secret protocol for the two countries to divide (and annex) Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. 12

Plan, or the Berlin Blockade, how could young people appreciate the ties that bound the

West together? All the “successor generation” remembered was the Vietnam War and the

Watergate scandal.27

Unlike the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s defenses depended on popular support at the ballot box. Undue optimism about détente could call into question the need for continued defense expenditures in the West. To avoid these difficulties, allied governments had to justify this spending. NATO’s solution, however, perpetuated the very problems it was designed to address. In order to secure that support, allied governments regularly invoked détente to soften public perceptions of Western hard power. In so doing, they contributed to the very optimism that itself threatened popular and financial support for NATO.

NATO’s stated commitment to détente constrained the policy options available to

Washington, as did the need for solidarity amongst the allies.28 US participation in the

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) under Richard Nixon, for instance, was largely rooted in the need to present a united Western front, as opposed to any meaningful interest in the process itself. Similar pressures could also be seen in the early 1980s. Faced with growing anxiety about the state of East-West relations, the Dual-

Track Decision’s fate seemed increasingly unclear. The planned deployment of US missiles to Western Europe aroused considerable public opposition, as activists took to

27 Kenneth P. Adler, “The Successor Generation: Why, Who, and How,” in The Successor Generation: International Perspectives of Postwar Europeans, ed. Stephen F. Szabo (London: Butterworths, 1983), 4-16.

28 John Young has characterized Western Europe’s role “as a brake on US policy during the ‘new’ Cold War”: John W. Young, “Western Europe and the end of the Cold War, 1979–1989,” in Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 3, 289. 13

the streets across the West to oppose the so-called Euromissiles. Failure to see the deployments through, however, would deal a critical blow to the Alliance. Both the

Carter and Reagan administrations placed considerable emphasis on retaining public support for the Dual-Track Decision, particularly in the countries intending to host the missiles. By virtue of the decision’s paired architecture, a legacy of the Harmel Report, this meant that both administrations found themselves negotiating with Moscow on eliminating the very weapons they were preparing to send to Europe.

Transatlantic debates over détente also reflected a broader shift in power within

NATO. Increasingly, the Federal Republic of Germany played a central role in setting the agenda for the Alliance. The parameters of intra-Alliance discussions were largely decided by Bonn and Washington, with issues often discussed between the two in advance of NATO-wide consultations. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, officials were invested in maintaining an image of the Alliance as a coalition of democracies led by Washington. This traditional perception undoubtedly suited US interests. Despite a relative decline in US power over the 1970s, such a view of NATO was an endorsement of US global leadership. The United States was the West’s superpower, surrounded by allies there of their own volition. For all the headaches US policy may have caused in domestic politics, the West Germans were also invested in this image. It drew attention away from the day-to-day realities of allied decision-making, downplaying the degree of

German influence within NATO, and diffused historic concerns about German power on the European continent. 14

Chapter Breakdown

Chapter 1 sets the stage, focusing on the Western allies’ decision to make détente central to Western strategy and the ensuing efforts to develop a more multilateral détente process.

The Harmel Exercise was, above all, a reactive one designed to quell the anxieties raised by the French withdrawal in 1966 and the underlying questions about NATO’s purpose in the age of détente. Though the exercise itself was a bureaucratic nightmare, the need for a reaffirmation of the Alliance and its continued relevance carried the day. After adopting the Harmel Report in December 1967, the Western allies looked to flesh out this new role. They called on their Eastern counterparts to negotiate on conventional forces in

Europe, leading to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks, and held regular consultations throughout the CSCE. Both of these multilateral negotiating fora increased NATO’s role in détente.

The Harmel Report had identified détente and defense as the two complementary objectives of the Alliance. As the 1970s progressed, however, neither seemed a sure bet.

Chapter 2 considers the challenges facing the Alliance as a result of growing pessimism regarding both. NATO seemed to be losing ground to the Warsaw Pact: earlier military superiority had given way to strategic parity. Detente increasingly seemed a losing proposition. Critics charged that détente conferred no real benefits to the West. It had done nothing to stop Soviet military growth or Moscow’s adventurism in the Third

World. 15

Chapter 3 focuses on allied efforts to meet these challenges, illustrating the continued relevance of the Harmel Report’s approach. NATO’s defense improvements in the late 1970s relied on two-pronged constructions, pairing arms control and dialogue with defense spending and the procurement of new, advanced weapons. The proposed handling of the neutron bomb (though later scuttled by the Carter administration), the

Long-Term Defense Program (LTDP), and the Dual-Track Decision were all structured along these lines. Allied governments, instead of explicitly selling their publics on the need for conventional and nuclear force modernization and the associated defense spending to carry it out, used détente to soften perceptions of NATO’s posture. Doing so, however, created structures which ensured that détente continued to be relevant in the future, despite the already poor state of East-West relations.

As East-West relations deteriorated in the early 1980s, these problems came to a head. Chapter 4 examines the major transatlantic debates of those years. Relations soured following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as the allies argued over how best to respond. Less than two years later, a similar rift surfaced after martial law was introduced in Poland. Both Afghanistan and Poland, ostensibly East-West issues, morphed into acute problems in West-West relations as the Atlantic Alliance debated the utility of sanctions.

Alongside these crises were simmering concerns over the Reagan administration’s Soviet policy and its commitment to the arms control talks called for the Dual-Track Decision.

Widespread public demonstrations on both sides of the Atlantic only added to the sense that the Alliance was adrift. 16

Out of these debates in the early 1980s emerged the most significant challenge to the Harmel Report’s paired formula, the subject of Chapter 5. The Reagan administration, frustrated with the lack of support for its foreign policy objectives, hoped to recalibrate

NATO’s approach and place a greater emphasis on defense. At the other end of the spectrum, Helmut Schmidt’s government campaigned at length for the Harmel Report’s two prongs to remain unchanged. These debates built on existing transatlantic tensions, including those brought about by Afghanistan, Poland, and the Euromissiles. Meaningful debate, however, was deferred; the need for allied solidarity trumped any strategic disagreements. The Alliance needed to patch up the problems of recent years, especially those caused by the Polish sanctions, in advance of 1983. The “year of the missile” required an Alliance united—or, at least, the appearance of one.

The final chapter, Chapter 6, deals with allied efforts to implement the Dual-Track

Decision and the debates that ensued. It examines how ideas of détente shaped the debate over NATO’s deployment of intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) and, in turn, how widespread public opposition to the Euromissiles encouraged allied leaders to revisit their strategy toward the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Anti-nuclear activism alarmed

Western policy-makers, playing on their longstanding fears that citizens throughout the

West no longer appreciated the need for NATO. Even the most hardline of allied leaders began to soften their tone, and, in May 1984, the Alliance publicly reaffirmed its commitment to the two pronged approach first laid out in the Harmel Report. 17

This is, therefore, a dissertation about the paradoxes embedded in the transatlantic bargain and the complexities of multilateral decision-making. It is a story about how

Western policy-makers and publics worked to overcome the divisions of the Cold War and the (often acrimonious) debates that ensued. Above all, it is about the degree to which public perception and image shaped the security policies of the Atlantic Alliance. Chapter 1: Arm to Parley

“I do not know who invented the expression, but whoever did so deserves to be given the propagandists’ top prize for it is a really diabolical expression. How can we possibly reject peaceful coexistence?”1 — Paul-Henri Spaak, 1961

“Military security and a policy of détente are not contradictory but complementary. Collective defense is a stabilizing factor in world politics. It is the necessary condition for effective policies directed towards a greater relaxation of tensions. The way peace and stability in Europe rests on the use of the Alliance constructively in the interest of détente.”2 — “Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance,” 1967

After Josef Stalin’s death in March 1953, the new collective leadership in Moscow embraced a far more cooperative tone toward the West. Stalin’s successors spoke of the need for “peaceful coexistence,” even using the longtime Soviet leader’s funeral as a public venue to call for improvements in East-West relations.3 Peaceful coexistence itself was hardly new, the idea dated back to Vladimir Lenin’s early accommodations with the

West. 4 Moscow’s return to the theme in the early 1950s, however, raised hopes that Cold

War tensions might thaw in the years to come.

1 Paul-Henri Spaak, “Boldness is All,” NATO Letter, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Jan. 1961): 2. 2 Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1968), available at: http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137535/0207_Report_on_the_future_tasks_of_the_Alliance- Harmel_Report_1968_BIL.pdf, 5. 3 Vojtech Mastny, “The Elusive Détente: Stalin’s Successors and the West,” in The Cold War After Stalin’s Death: A Missed Opportunity for Peace?, ed. Klaus Larres and Kenneth Osgood (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 4.

4 Nikita Khrushchev described peaceful coexistence as “the basic principle of [the Soviet Union’s] foreign policy” from the state’s creation, pointing to Lenin’s 1920 remarks that peace could exist between the United States and Soviet Russia: “let the American imperialists not touch us. We won’t touch them”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, “On Peaceful Coexistence,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 38, Issue 1 (October 1959): 2. 18 19

Peaceful coexistence posed a direct challenge to the Western allies, one which persisted throughout the Cold War. From NATO’s perspective, a Soviet policy of “smiling faces” threatened to undercut the Atlantic Alliance.5 Their logic was simple: if NATO’s raison d’être was to keep the Soviets out, any improvement in relations threatened to write the Alliance out of existence. Even minor reductions in Cold War tensions were cause for concern. A diminished Soviet threat might make it more difficult to secure public support for crucial defense spending throughout the West.

Worse still, détente’s potential to do damage to the Alliance did not depend on tangible breakthroughs in East-West relations. Détente, countless allied officials worried over the years, was a Soviet ploy designed to weaken Western resolve and to split the

Alliance. Soviet rhetoric, it seemed, had been calibrated to foster “an illusory sense of security” amongst Western citizens.6 Lofty disarmament proposals appeared engineered to do nothing more than undercut the West’s position in the eyes of its own people. “The real aim of Soviet policy,” as one NATO assessment colorfully put it in 1956, was “the destruction of a political alliance with teeth, because its unity diminishes the chances of applying the classical procedure of first isolating a victim before intimidating him and finally engulfing him.”7 Allied officials worried that Western citizens might develop unrealistic expectations about what could be achieved in relations with the East. “Détente

5 Summary record, NAC ministerial meeting, Palais de Chaillot, Paris, October 25, 1955, NATO, C- R(55)48. 6 Paul-Henri Spaak, Why NATO? (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1959), 24.

7 “Public Relations Aspects of Political Consultations in NATO,” March 8, 1956, NATO, C-M(56)25. 20

euphoria,” as they later dubbed this worrisome condition, could place pressure on allied governments to make concessions to the East in the hopes of keeping détente alive.8

NATO’s role in détente had been the subject of much debate throughout the 1950s and 1960s for precisely these reasons. After the Geneva Summit in 1955, the Western allies debated the value of deepening East-West contacts in the hopes of one day “raising the Iron Curtain.”9 NATO’s Committee on Information and Cultural Relations gathered information on any and all allied contacts with the East, paying particular attention to the public’s perceptions of these contacts.10 Such consultations underscored allied fears that peaceful coexistence might be used to weaken support for the Alliance.11

When East-West relations began to improve after the Cuban Missile Crisis, many of NATO’s members worried that a breakthrough in superpower relations might come at their expense. Moscow and Washington, they feared, would form a superpower condominium—leaving out their European allies (and their interests). Others saw opportunity in the new climate. The signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in August

1963 encouraged many within NATO to begin identifying possible avenues to improve

8 Report by the Economic Committee, “NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Security and Political Implications of the Economic Situation,” June 1975, NATO, C-M(75)40; Memorandum from the Office of Central Intelligence, “The CSCE and Western Europe -- Pluses and Minuses,” July 18, 1975, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (GFPL), National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Files, Box 44, “Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1975 (1) NSC” folder. 9 “Trends and Implications of Soviet Policy – Report by the President of the Working Group,” December 3, 1955, NATO, C-M(55)121; Saki Dockrill and Günter Bischof, “Geneva: The Fleeting Opportunity for Détente,” in Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955, ed. Günter Bischof and Saki Dockrill (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), 16. 10 Committee on Information and Cultural Relations report, “East/West Exchanges,” March 12, 1956, NATO, C-M(56)28.

11 “Possible Study Looking To Co-ordinated Approach to East-West Exchanges,” September 21, 1957, NATO, AC/52-D/258. 21

relations with the Soviet Union themselves.12 Some of the smaller transatlantic partners—

Belgium, Canada, Italy, and Norway, for example—pushed for NATO to develop a larger institutional role for itself in East-West relations as a whole.13 The Gaullist move against

NATO, too, reflected the challenges of détente. Détente, as far as the French president was concerned, contradicted NATO’s original mission as laid out in the Treaty of

Washington: an alliance against the Soviet Union.

The ties criss-crossing the Iron Curtain multiplied over the course of the 1960s.

NATO’s members looked to strengthen their bilateral relations with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states. But these improvements again spelled trouble for the

Atlantic Alliance. The same question remained: what exactly would be the point of

NATO if the Soviet threat were neutralized?

NATO’s answer was to endorse détente, adopting it as a central task of the

Alliance in December 1967. The “Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance” (better known as the Harmel Report) laid out two parallel functions: to maintain an adequate

Western defense posture and to pursue improved relations with the East. In so doing, the

Western allies contributed to a “strategic and moral consensus” which favored détente.14

As East-West relations flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Western allies began to carve out a role for the Alliance itself. Multilateral talks between East and West

12 Dirk U. Stikker, “The Long, Rough Road,” NATO Letter, Vol. 11, No. 12 (December 1963): 5. 13 Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “What Role for NATO? Conflicting Western Perceptions of Détente, 1963–65,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2004): 185-208.

14 Jeremi Suri, “The Normative Resilience of NATO: A Community of Shared Values Amid Public Discord,” in Transforming NATO in the Cold War: Challenges Beyond Deterrence in the 1960s, ed. Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher (London: Routledge, 2007), 26. 22

commenced to great international fanfare, thanks in large part to efforts within NATO; the

Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks and the Conference on Security and

Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) both reflected this new, more multilateral détente.

NATO’s newly defined role in détente was an attempt to square the circle present in earlier debates. Détente, the Harmel Report affirmed, was not antithetical to the purpose of NATO. Rather, by defining détente as part of NATO’s overall mission, the

Harmel Report tried to convert détente’s liabilities into advantages. The Western allies had long worried that improvements in East-West relations might sap their publics’ support for NATO as an institution. Détente could instead be used to cultivate and retain support for the Alliance, contributing to an image of NATO as an instrument for peace, not just an insurance policy for a day when war might come.

Future Tasks

In the spring of 1966, Charles de Gaulle announced his intention to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated command structure.15 France must “recover the entire exercise of her sovereignty over her territory,” according to the French president. France’s forces would be withdrawn from all integrated command and, going forward, these forces would no longer be placed at NATO’s disposal. But France would remain active in the other

15 Some have argued that the move made little difference in the day-to-day functioning of the Alliance. According to John Leddy, who served as Assistant Secretary for Europe between 1965 and 1969: “As soon as the old man’s [de Gaulle’s] mind was on other things, France’s military started to become very close to NATO; de facto, France’s military position in NATO was practically what it had been before, only informal. U.S. troops were not in France, that was the only change.” John Leddy oral history interview, January 31, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Leddy,%20John.toc.pdf, 14. 23

functions of the Alliance and remain party to the North Atlantic Treaty.16 “They were in and they were out,” as one former US official later summed up the arrangement.17

The withdrawal could hardly be seen as a surprise. De Gaulle had moved against

NATO before. Soon after returning to power in 1958, he had tried to rearrange NATO as a trilateral directorate, envisioning a world run by more or less powerful nation-states— that is, one in which the “more” dominated the “less” (so long as the “more” included

France). NATO’s current iteration, he concluded, did not meet “the conditions of security of the free world” or those of the French state.18 The United States and the United

Kingdom, the other powers implicated in de Gaulle’s troika, were willing to play along, but only up to a certain point. Neither Dwight Eisenhower nor Harold Macmillan had much interest in changing the basic structures of NATO.19 In the early 1960s, de Gaulle challenged the Kennedy administration’s “Grand Design” for Europe and called into

16 “Letter from President de Gaulle to President Johnson,” March 7, 1966, FRUS 1964–1968, Vol. XIII, Western Europe Region (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1995), doc. 137. 17 John Leddy oral history interview, January 31, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Leddy, %20John.toc.pdf, 13. 18 “Letter from President de Gaulle to President Eisenhower,” September 17, 1968, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. VII, part II, Western Europe (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1993), doc. 45.

19 While neither the Eisenhower nor Macmillan governments went along with the tripartite directorate as a replacement for NATO, they shared many of the French general’s conclusions about the limitations of NATO in an increasingly global confrontation between East and West. On this, see Timothy Andrews Sayle, “NATO’s Crisis Years: The End of the Atlantic Mystique and the Making of Pax Atlantica: 1955-1968,” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 2014), 72-103; 123-4. 24

question Washington’s role on the continent.20 Kennedy’s successor Lyndon Johnson fared no better in de Gaulle’s eyes. As far as the French president was concerned, the

Texan lacked the vision and skill needed to lead the Western Alliance.21

France’s withdrawal brought tensions long-simmering within NATO to a head. It forced the remaining fourteen allies to confront larger questions facing the Alliance.

Would NATO survive beyond 1969? According to the provisions of the North Atlantic

Treaty, any of the allies could leave once this twenty-year mark had been reached.22

Would the new strategy of flexible response—a far more gradual escalation plan than the massive retaliation of the 1950s—lead to a decoupling of the United States from the defense of Europe? And should the United States even remain involved on the European continent as NATO prescribed? Now two decades after the end of World War II, the

Western Europeans might be able to provide for their own defense. Washington’s deepening involvement in Vietnam caused many to question the wisdom of US leadership, no doubt made worse by congressional efforts to reduce the amount of US

20 Charles de Gaulle’s views of the Atlantic Alliance, Washington’s role therein, and the complications this caused NATO in the 1960s are widely discussed in the existing literature. See, for example, James Ellison, The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963–1968 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “NATO Strategies towards de Gaulle’s France, 1958-66: Learning to Cope,” in Globalizing de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958-69, ed. Christian Nuenlist et al. (Lanham: Lexington, 2010), 85-109; Anna Locher, Crisis? What Crisis? NATO, de Gaulle, and the Future of the Alliance, 1963–66 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010); Christian Nuenlist, “Dealing with the Devil: NATO and Gaullist France, 1956–66,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (September 2011): 220-31. 21 Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 98.

22 This provision was outlined in Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty: “After the Treaty has been in force for twenty years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.” 25

troops and financial resources dedicated to the defense of Europe when those Europeans proved unwilling to come to the aid of the United States in its war in Vietnam.

Alongside these questions, the emerging climate of détente seemed to threaten the very foundations of the Atlantic Alliance, its purpose and function. Such thinking underpinned de Gaulle’s move against NATO in the spring of 1966.23 His logic was straightforward: if the threats now facing the Western allies were no longer urgent—and, increasingly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, de Gaulle assumed they were not—what was the point of the Alliance as it had been conceived of in 1949?

But the prospect of a world with no NATO was troubling to say the least. De

Gaulle’s challenge threatened nothing short of the fundamental building blocks of the post-war transatlantic order: the assumption that the Federal Republic of Germany must develop its national security policy under the auspices of NATO, and not with potentially disastrous independence of action. Without NATO, where would this leave Bonn?

Charles Bohlen, the US Ambassador to France, warned that the “real danger” of de

Gaulle’s move lay in the prospect that it might bring about another Soviet-German rapprochement à la Rapallo.24

There was no real debate within the Johnson administration about the need to preserve NATO after the French withdrawal. De Gaulle’s letter announcing Paris’s

23 “Aide-Mémoire from the French Government to the U.S. Government,” March 11, 1966, FRUS 1964– 1968, vol. XIII, doc. 142. On the French withdrawal and its impact on NATO, see Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilateralization of Détente, 1966-1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2004): 22-74.

24 Bohlen to Rusk, June 3, 1966, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. XIII, doc. 172. 26

intention to leave the integrated command structure was received in Washington on

March 7, 1966, and that same day, briefings prepared for the president insisted that the

Alliance must go on, regardless of the French position.25 The question was not if, but how. Johnson’s handling of de Gaulle was marked by restraint, summed up in the president’s later memoirs with a characteristic, down-home analogy: “when a man asks you to leave his house, you don’t argue; you get your hat and go.”26 Throughout the spring and summer of 1966, however, the administration debated the best course of action. Secretary of State Dean Rusk insisted that the old methods of the 1940s would no longer work. Times had changed and the Europeans were not nearly as powerless as they had been two decades ago in the aftermath of a devastating war. But others within the administration, including Under Secretary of State George Ball and Assistant Secretary of

State Henry Owen, thought the answer was strong US leadership to whip the Western

Europeans into shape.27

That fall, Johnson ended up returning to the bridge-building ideas touted in the administration’s early days.28 On October 7, 1966, the third anniversary of the Limited

25 Bator to Johnson, “Your Further Response to de Gaulle,” March 7, 1966, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. XIII, doc. 138. 26 Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 305. 27 Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity,” 34-5.

28 On Johnson and the administration’s early thinking regarding the bridge-building approach, see Kieninger, Dynamic Détente, 25-40; Simon Miles, “Envisioning Détente: The Johnson Administration and the October 1964 Khrushchev Ouster,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2016): 722-49; Thomas A. Schwartz, “Moving Beyond the Cold War: The Johnson Administration, Bridge-Building, and Détente,” in Beyond the Cold War: Lyndon Johnson and the New Global Challenges of the 1960s, ed. Francis J. Gavin and Mark Atwood Lawrence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 76-94. 27

Test Ban Treaty, Johnson addressed the National Conference of Editorial Writers in New

York City. The timing of the address was far from a coincidence: it underscored the speech’s main message, a call to improve East-West relations through “peaceful engagement.” Any such engagement, the president was careful to emphasize, must be anchored in a strong Western Alliance. Only by strengthening and deepening the existing transatlantic bonds could the search for peace in Europe be furthered.29 Johnson’s renewed emphasis on détente was not limited to US policy. Within the administration, greater European participation was seen as necessary, if not vital, to maintaining a healthy transatlantic partnership. Washington could not simply dictate the parameters of détente to its allies, Rusk concluded. Rather, the United States might encourage its partners in Europe to take on a greater role in developing contacts across the Iron Curtain.

Central to the administration’s vision was a more active West German role in particular.30

But the Alliance’s future remained largely an open question. The allies had reaffirmed NATO’s continued relevance at the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial meeting in June 1966, but none of the underlying issues had been addressed.31 Belgian

Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel recommended a high-level, comprehensive review

29 Johnson remarks, National Conference of Editorial Writers, New York City, October 7, 1966, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (PPP): Lyndon B. Johnson 1966, vol. 2 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1967), 1128; Ball to Rostow, September 29, 1966, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library (LJPL), National Security File, Papers of Walt W. Rostow, Box 1, “Meetings with the President April – December 1966 [1 of 2]” folder. 30 Kieninger, Dynamic Détente, 50.

31 Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Brussels, June 7-8, 1966, NATO, https://www.nato.int/ docu/comm/49-95/c660607a.htm. 28

intended to “reflect upon [the] future of [the] Alliance.”32 Harmel’s proposal was, in fact, a resuscitated version of an earlier Canadian initiative to study the past, present, and future of the Alliance, introduced some two years earlier.33 But in 1964, the Canadian proposal had gone largely ignored, written off as an unnecessary bureaucratic exercise not worth the headache or the cost. Two years later, the French move against NATO and the broader issues underlying de Gaulle’s challenge demanded a direct response. The

Belgian foreign minister’s proposal also reflected his own domestic political calculus. As part of de Gaulle’s efforts to reassert sovereignty over French territory, France’s withdrawal from the integrated command structure forced NATO out of its headquarters in the Parisian suburbs. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) relocated to Mons, Belgium, while NATO’s civilian secretariat set up shop in Brussels.34

To sell the Belgian public on the country’s new role as NATO’s host, Harmel saw value in revisiting the basic principles and purposes of the Alliance.35

In December 1966, the fifteen allies—including France—agreed to undertake a sweeping exercise reviewing the changes to the international landscape over the course of the preceding twenty years. Drafting the review was left to a group of special

32AmEmbassy Brussels to RUEHC/SecState, Brussels 2421, November 22, 1966, LJPL, National Security File, International Meetings and Travel File, Box 35, “NATO Ministerial Meeting, Paris December, 1966 [1 of 3]” folder. 33 At the December 1964 ministerial, Canada’s Secretary of State for External Affairs Paul Martin had called for a study of the future of NATO: Locher and Nuenlist, “What Role for NATO?,” 197. 34 Headquarters for SHAPE’s subordinate, Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT), moved to the Netherlands.

35 Sayle, Pax Atlantica, 365. 29

representatives, divided into four sub-groups. The first, dedicated to East-West relations, was jointly chaired by two foreign ministry representatives, one British and one West

German. NATO’s former Secretary General Paul-Henri Spaak served as the rapporteur for the second group dealing with relations between the allies. The third sub-group dealt with defense policy and, unsurprisingly, was left to the United States with Under

Secretary of State Foy Kohler as its chair. A final sub-group tackled the politically charged question of NATO’s relations with other countries (excluding East-West relations), focusing on issues outside the Treaty area. This unhappy task was pawned off on a Dutch professor of international relations, C. L. Patijn.

The Harmel exercise was chaotic, to put it mildly. Allies complained about the handling of some of the exercise’s sub-groups and its rapporteurs struggled to find sufficient common ground to cobble together their final products. Patijn’s draft on out-of- area issues was considered far too sweeping by a number of the allies, envisioning a role for NATO around the world which none were interested in taking on at the time.36 The language used in Spaak’s draft infuriated the French, who even went so far as to object to the description of NATO as an institution for peace.37 Both the first and the third subgroups, covering East-West relations and defense policy, respectively, tried to grapple with détente’s relevance to the Alliance. But there was no consensus. None of the allied

36 Circular telegram from the Department of State to the Posts in NATO Capitals, October 4, 1967, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. XIII, doc. 268.

37 Rusk, Harmel et al. memorandum of conversation, September 27, 1967, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. XIII, doc. 267. 30

governments could agree on what détente was or whether the term applied to the current state of affairs.

A final report was tabled and approved at the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial meeting on December 14, 1967. The document itself was short and unclassified, defining explicitly NATO’s “two main functions.” The first was its traditional mandate dating back to the organization’s founding in 1949: NATO would “maintain adequate military strength and political solidarity to deter aggression and other forms of pressure and to defend the territory of member countries if aggression should occur.” NATO’s second function would be “to pursue the search for progress towards a more stable relationship in which the underlying political issues can be solved.” Put another way, NATO would be an engine of détente.38 With this affirmation, the allies rejected outright the argument that détente was somehow incongruous with the mandate and purpose of the Atlantic

Alliance. Instead, they defined an explicit role for the Alliance in the détente process, highlighting the complementary nature of ensuring an adequate Western defense and working to relax tensions with the East.

The double philosophy laid out in the Harmel Report rested on the idea that the two prongs were mutually reinforcing. Either of the functions depended on the success of the other. To ensure that NATO’s defenses remained strong, the Western allies relied on détente or the promise thereof. Public support for defense spending, they concluded yet

38 Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1968), available at: http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137535/0207_Report_on_the_future_tasks_of_the_Alliance- Harmel_Report_1968_BIL.pdf, 5. 31

again, hinged on their ability to demonstrate that they were committed to negotiating with the East. Reaching an acceptable agreement through negotiation with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, however, would depend on the strength of NATO’s existing defenses. Simply put, they needed a large enough stick to convince their Eastern counterparts that it was worth coming to the negotiating table.39 Progress would require a delicate balancing act. Détente’s successes could not be allowed to derail investments in

Western defense; the maintenance of an adequate defense posture must not jeopardize improvements in East-West relations. Cyclical and both mutually reinforcing and undermining, it was a recipe for future discord.

The Harmel Report’s paired approach was far from new. The idea that NATO provided a security guarantee which made it possible to improve East-West relations—or, at the very least, to try to improve relations—had long been understood. In 1959,

Canadian foreign minister Howard Green told a Toronto audience that “NATO endows us with a source of mutual confidence and responsibility for the vital East-West negotiations lying ahead which no member, by itself, could have attained.”40 Halvard Lange,

Norway’s foreign minister, identified two key priorities in a speech before the Atlantic

Treaty Association the next year. The Western allies should expand their contacts with the communist world, Lange argued, but at the same time, “the other and parallel task for the

39 Frédéric Bozo, “Defense versus Security? Reflections on the Past and Present of the “Future Tasks” of the Alliance (1949-99),” in A History of NATO – The First Fifty Years, vol. 2, ed. Gustav Schmidt (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001), 74.

40 Green remarks, Empire and Canadian Clubs of Toronto, November 26, 1959, Global Affairs Canada Digital Library, http://gac.canadiana.ca/view/ooe.sas_19591126ES/1?r=0&s=1. 32

West” must be to maintain sufficient military capabilities to deter Soviet aggression.41

Johnson’s emphasis on peaceful engagement in the autumn of 1966, too, reflected the belief that a strong and cohesive Western Alliance was the necessary starting point for any rapprochement with the East. This thinking was reflected in the phrasing and structure of the Harmel Report. The Report’s fifth point, outlining NATO’s two functions, was clear: détente was a second-order function which stemmed from a strong Western defense posture.

Alongside its affirmation that defense and détente were central functions of the

Alliance, the Harmel Report also identified a series of major areas of interest to the fifteen allies. It pointed to traditional issues, such as the need for cohesion and solidarity, as well as “frank and timely consultations” among them. The latter would be all the more important as the Western allies sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union and

Eastern Europe. “The pursuit of détente,” the Report insisted, “must not be allowed to split the Alliance.” The fifteen allies would be far more likely to succeed if their activities were conducted in parallel. To that end, the Harmel Report outlined the allies’ commitment to consider possible policies “designed to achieve a just and stable order in

Europe, to over come the division of Germany and to foster European security.” Here, the

41 Halvard Lange, “NATO and East-West Relations,” NATO Letter, Vol. 8, No. 9 (Sept. 1960): 2. 33

Report pointed to the value of both bilateral and multilateral negotiations, along with the need to redouble NATO’s study of possible disarmament and arms control initiatives.42

Brief and unclassified, the Harmel Report was explicitly designed for public consumption. It offered carefully placed reminders of NATO’s successes. “The exercise,” point three declared, “has shown that the Alliance is a dynamic and vigorous organization which is constantly adapting itself to changing conditions.” It also offered reassurances of the Western allies’ desire for peace. Point thirteen highlighted the Alliance’s commitment to considering disarmament and arms control initiatives, promising that these efforts would be “intensified” as a sign of their intention to “work for an effective détente with the East.”43 NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division produced and circulated a pamphlet version of the Report in 1968, including a brief introduction drawing the reader’s attention to the “adaptability and vitality of the Alliance.”44 Writing in the Alliance’s monthly magazine, NATO Letter, Secretary General Manlio Brosio pointed in particular to the Report’s unanimous nature. All fifteen of the allies had affirmed NATO’s continued

42 Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1968), available at: http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137535/0207_Report_on_the_future_tasks_of_the_Alliance- Harmel_Report_1968_BIL.pdf, 7. 43 Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1968), available at: http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137535/0207_Report_on_the_future_tasks_of_the_Alliance- Harmel_Report_1968_BIL.pdf, 4.

44 Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1968), available at: http://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137535/0207_Report_on_the_future_tasks_of_the_Alliance- Harmel_Report_1968_BIL.pdf, 1. 34

importance, a fact made all the more significant as the Alliance approached its twentieth anniversary—and the looming post-1969 opportunity to leave.45

Making Détente Multilateral

At the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial session in June 1968, the assembled ministers took stock of the progress thus far on the “future tasks” outlined in the Harmel Report. In advance of the meeting in Reykjavik, the Council’s permanent representatives had drafted a comprehensive review of East-West relations over the preceding two years. Its conclusions were cautious, yet optimistic. Relations between East and West had already begun to improve, and the prospects for further improvements seemed good.

Expectations, however, must be kept in check; “opportunities for rapid progress should not be over-rated.”46

The June 1968 ministerial took a major step toward one of the goals outlined in the Harmel Report. Over the preceding months, allied governments had studied possible opportunities regarding arms control and disarmament initiatives. Much of this discussion revolved around the idea of negotiating conventional force reductions in Europe, an idea explicitly referenced in paragraph thirteen of the Harmel Report. At Reykjavik, the

Fourteen released a declaration expressing their interest in talks with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states on the reduction of conventional forces in Central

45 Manlio Brosio, “Past and Future Tasks of the Alliance: An Analysis of the Harmel Report,” NATO Letter, Vol. 16, No. 3 (March 1968): 10.

46 Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Reykjavik, June 27, 1968, NATO, PRESS RELEASE M2(68)4/1. 35

Europe.47 Dubbed the Reykjavik Signal, the declaration was a direct response to the

Warsaw Pact’s earlier calls for bloc-to-bloc negotiations. NATO’s declaration on balanced force reductions exemplified and lent credibility to its desire to improve relations with the

Soviet Union and the Eastern European states.

Merely two months later, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. It was a sharp reminder that Moscow could and would use force to achieve its goals. “We cannot close our eyes to the fact that we are faced with an immense military potential,” West

German Foreign Minister Willy Brandt noted.48 The Warsaw Pact’s intervention in

Czechoslovakia shook public confidence in détente and its prospects in the immediate future. Statement after statement from allied officials conveyed a sense of disappointment about what the invasion would mean for the future of East-West relations. Franz-Josef

Strauß, the West German finance minister, accused those who still favored détente of being “heart and brain transplanters” intent on judging Soviet politicians by Western standards. Brandt, however, insisted that détente remained the right course of action.

“There was no alternative to the détente policy,” he concluded.49

Even after the crushing of the Prague Spring, NATO pressed ahead with the idea of force reduction talks.50 The Western allies declared that the talks’ prospects were now

47 “Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions,” June 24-25, 1968, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/ 49-95/c680624b.htm. 48 Willy Brandt, “Facing New Challenges,” NATO Letter, Vol. 17, No. 4 (April 1969): 2. 49 “Tüchtige Träumer,” September 9, 1968, Der Spiegel.

50 John G. McGinn, “The Politics of Collective Inaction: NATO’s Response to the Prague Spring,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Fall 1999): 111-38. 36

dimmer, concluding that the intervention was “a severe set back” to potential talks. But, in the very same communiqué, they also reaffirmed their fundamental desire to negotiate with the East. NATO’s foreign ministers restated this at their meeting in November 1968.

The Western allies, the final communiqué noted, would continue “their studies and preparations for a time when the atmosphere for fruitful discussions is more favorable.”51

Manlio Brosio came to a similar conclusion in the NATO Letter’s November 1968 issue, noting that events in Czechoslovakia would impact “the timing, the intensity, and the possible outcome” of contacts with the East, “not the basic intent of promoting détente itself.”52 Conspicuously absent from such calls was any mention of the war in Vietnam, implying a degree of divisibility between events in Europe and elsewhere around the world.53

At meeting after meeting, the North Atlantic Council continued to underscore its desire for balanced force negotiations with the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies.54 Warsaw Pact interest in any such talks was limited. For much of 1969 and 1970,

51 Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Brussels, November 15-16, 1968, NATO, https:// www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c681115a.htm. 52 Manlio Brosio, “The Evolution of the Atlantic Alliance,” NATO Letter, Vol. 16, No. 11 (November 1968): 5. 53 After the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965, the Soviet leadership tried to stop the North Vietnamese from waging war on the South. Chief among their concerns was the fear that such a war might impede détente with the United States and the other Western allies. Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War From Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 198.

54 Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Washington, April 10-11, 1969, NATO, https:// www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c690410a.htm; Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Brussels, December 4-5, 1969, NATO, https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c691204a.htm; Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Rome, May 26-27, 1970, NATO, https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/ c700526a.htm. 37

the Eastern powers ignored NATO’s repeated overtures. At the beginning of 1971, the most detailed Warsaw Pact statement to date on the possible conventional force negotiations was an ambiguous reference to a “reduction of foreign forces” on the

European continent.55

Despite the lack of movement on conventional force negotiations with the East,

NATO’s own studies on the issue progressed. Extensive consultations took place on the prospective talks, as the allies identified the complex web of issues which would be at play in any force reduction scenario. Individual allied governments pushed for movement on the question of MBFR. Willy Brandt, now the West German Chancellor, made it a central issue during his April 1970 visit to Washington, lobbying for a “stronger NATO signal” on the issue.56 The next month, at the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial meeting in Rome, the West Germans tabled a comprehensive proposal for MBFR negotiations with the Warsaw Pact, even going so far as to include criteria for exploratory talks.

Brandt saw value in the talks as a means of heading off pressures for the United

States to unilaterally reduce its forces stationed in Europe. Secretary of State Henry

Kissinger saw a whole host of reasons to stall, not least the desire to maintain

Washington’s leadership within NATO.57 The Alliance settled on a Canadian

55 “NATO at the Beginning of 1971,” NATO Letter, Vol. 19, Nos. 1 & 2 (January 1971): 3. 56 “Memorandum for the Record,” April 8, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XL, doc. 76.

57 “Memorandum from Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” May 20, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XXXIX, doc. 23. 38

compromise: a separate declaration would be issued dealing with MBFR.58 The Rome

Declaration accordingly laid out a series of criteria for any future talks on mutual and balanced force reductions, emphasizing the need for any such reduction to be reciprocal, phased, and balanced.59 It was familiar territory, covering largely the same ground as a string of allied statements issued over the course of 1968 and 1969. “We came out with

… a communiqué which has given the Alliance some propaganda mileage,” Robert

Ellsworth, the US permanent representative to NATO cabled to Kissinger.60

No real response came from the East until 1971. At the 24th Party Congress in

March, Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev indicated Moscow’s willingness to consider reducing the country’s military forces, pointing to Central Europe as a prime area for such reductions. Later, as part of a May speech in Tbilisi, Brezhnev again hinted at the possibility of negotiating reductions to conventional forces stationed in Central

Europe. “Do not such curious people resemble a person who tries to judge the taste of a wine by its appearance alone, without touching it?,” Brezhnev wondered aloud. “If there is any vagueness, this can certainly be eliminated. All that is necessary is to muster the resolve to ‘taste’ the proposals that interest you, which, translated into diplomatic

58 “Memorandum From Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the National Security Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” May 20, 1970, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. XXXIX, European Security (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2007), doc. 23; Kieninger, Dynamic Détente, 137. 59 “Declaration on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions,” May 26-27, 1970, NATO, https:// www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c700526b.htm.

60 “Backchannel Message From the Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Ellsworth) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs,” May 29, 1970, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. XXXIX, doc. 25. 39

language, means to enter into negotiations.”61 However roundabout, Brezhnev’s remarks in Tbilisi were taken as a sign of interest in the West. The final communiqué from the

North Atlantic Council’s June ministerial meeting acknowledged the recent Soviet signal, promising that it was “receiving the closest attention of the Alliance.”62

The Fourteen appointed an “explorer” to make contact with the Soviet Union and other governments in Eastern Europe potentially interested in conventional force reduction talks. Their pick for the job was NATO’s recently retired Secretary General,

Manlio Brosio. But the Brosio Mission did little more than demonstrate, yet again, that

NATO was still talking about possible force reduction negotiations with the East. Such talks, many of the allies concluded, would reduce domestic pressures for reduced defense expenditures—including, crucially, pressures to withdraw US forces from Europe—and demonstrate NATO’s commitment to relaxing East-West tensions. “Mr. Brosio had little to offer,” one official from the Polish foreign ministry concluded. His instructions from the Fourteen were already well known in Moscow. Even his title indicated the limits of his power: he was there to explore, nothing more. Soviet officials accordingly paid little attention to Brosio or his mission.63 Some four years after the Harmel Report, talks on mutual and balanced force reductions seemed no closer to becoming a reality.

61 Brezhnev remarks, Tbilisi, May 14, 1971, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 23, No. 20 (June 1971), 5. 62 Final communiqué, NAC ministerial session, Lisbon, June 3-4, 1971, NATO, https://www.nato.int/docu/ comm/49-95/c710603a.htm; Roger J. Hill, “Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions: The State of a Key Alliance Policy,” NATO Review, Vol. 19, Nos. 9/10 (September 1971): 17-20.

63 German delegation note, “The MBFR Aspect of the Prague Declaration,” March 6, 1972, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 25, Vol. 9087, File 20-4-CSCE, Part 18. 40

Part of the problem was a lack of genuine interest in the proposal from some of

NATO’s most powerful members. For all of their public statements and final communiqués highlighting the Western desire to negotiate, MBFR had its fair share of critics within the Alliance. “No one believes there is much prospect of success,”

Kissinger wrote to Nixon on the eve of Brandt’s April 1970 visit.64 Neither the British nor the French were particularly keen on the idea. MBFR seemed “inadvisable from a

Western point of view,” one British diplomat remarked.65 In Washington, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger worked to block any and all State Department initiatives designed to move the prospective talks forward. Other problems stemmed from uncertainty about the actual purpose of any such force reduction talks. Was MBFR’s primary objective to further the détente process? Or were the talks first and foremost an exercise in arms control, intended to reduce the prospect of a confrontation in Central Europe?66 Could the two even be separated? Some of the NATO allies “hanker[ed] perversely after MBFR” as a potential opportunity to reduce their defense budgets.67

MBFR was not the only multilateral forum under consideration. At the Warsaw

Pact’s meeting in March 1969, the alliance’s membership called for a European security

64 “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” April 9, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XL, doc. 78. 65 Hooper memorandum, “Review of Anglo/Canadian Relations: CSCE,” August 25, 1972, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 9088, File 20-4-CSCE, Part 21. 66 Helga Haftendorn, “The Link between CSCE and MBFR: Two Sprouts From One Bulb,” in Origins of the European Security System: The Helsinki Process Revisited, 1965-75, ed. Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian Nuenlist (London: Routledge, 2008), 237.

67 “Note by the Defence Policy Staff of the Chiefs of Staff Committee DP Note 215/72 [WDN 27/19],” April 21, 1972, Documents on British Policy Overseas (DBPO), series III, vol. III, Détente in Europe, 1972-76 (London: The Stationery Office, 2001), doc. 1. 41

conference. The idea was far from new: the Soviet Union had first suggested a possible treaty on European security in 1954, and the proposal had reappeared in various iterations in subsequent years. Time after time, the Western allies dismissed the idea of a conference as a scheme to ratify Moscow’s position in Eastern Europe and evict the

United States (and, though far less of a concern, Canada) from the continent. But as efforts to reduce East-West tensions gained traction during the late 1960s, the prospect of a conference on European security appealed to some of the allied governments.

If the Western allies were to participate in such a conference, these talks would need to be approached with caution. All of the reasons to reject the scheme, as the allies had done in previous years, still remained: the Soviet Union still hoped that a conference could be used “to consolidate the status quo in Europe.”68 But many of NATO’s members concluded that the talks were worth pursuing nevertheless. Part of their logic was performative: if talks did not take place, they risked being painted as an obstacle to détente.69

Initial consultation within the European Community (EC) created a degree of consensus in favor of a conference. But within the Alliance, a range of opinions could be found. US attitudes toward the hypothetical talks, for instance, remained largely

“passive.”70 Given the Soviet desire for a European security conference, there was some

68 “NATO’s Moves to Forge Security in Europe,” NATO Letter, Vol. 18, Nos. 10/11 (October 1970): 4. 69 Sarah B. Snyder, “The United States, Western Europe, and the CSCE,” in The Strained Alliance, 260.

70 Tickell to Butler, March 27, 1972, DBPO, series III, vol. II, The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (London: The Stationery Office, 1997), doc. 6. 42

potential value to the talks. The proposal itself afforded the West leverage: in exchange for Western participation, they might be able to secure some concessions from Moscow.

But broadly, the Nixon administration continued to see it as a Soviet scheme designed to divide the Alliance. At the other end of the spectrum were Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and Canada. These four—the “wet front,” as one British official derisively dubbed them

—expressed optimism about what might be achieved, seeing a conference as a chance to deepen détente.71 British officials worried about a possible clash simmering between the

EC members and the United States. Such a rift must not be allowed to take place; instead, the allies needed to develop a shared position on the substance of such a conference.72

British views, however, were unlikely to make that task any easier. London tended to regard a European security conference as “an occasion for judicious political warfare.”73

NATO’s ongoing consultations emphasized the need for allied solidarity. Formal bloc-to-bloc negotiations were undesirable—none of the NATO allies wished to give up their own freedom of action or one of the Alliance’s most useful propaganda lines, that each member retained individual agency as opposed to being superpower satellites—but a lack of agreement did pose a serious risk in the eyes of Western policy-makers. Disarray

71 Rodric Braithwaite could not resist an additional quip in his summary of the “wet,” chalking the now- retired Pierre Harmel’s continued interest in détente up to the fact that “he invented it when he wrote the Harmel Report for NATO in 1967.” Braithwaite to Allan, “CSCE: National Attitudes,” April 25, 1972, DBPO, series III, vol. II, doc. 8. 72 Thomson to Brimelow, April 5, 1972, DBPO, series III, vol. II, doc. 7.

73 Braithwaite to Allan, “CSCE: National Attitudes,” April 25,1972, DBPO, series III, vol. II, doc. 8. 43

could play to Moscow’s advantage, as the Soviet Union would “undoubtedly have its

[Warsaw Pact] allies well under its thumb.”74

Throughout these debates, a possible European security conference was linked to the idea of MBFR talks. The West Germans, in particular, pushed for a connection between the two. From the Nixon administration’s perspective, such a link was undesirable. Connecting the talks would make it even more difficult to negotiate force reductions. The French objected to any linkage: the government in Paris had little interest in MBFR. With the issue still open at NATO, the United States and the Soviet Union reached a separate deal on the two talks. Kissinger, during his April 1972 trip to Moscow, struck a bargain that envisioned the start of European security talks and negotiations on

MBFR, though the two would take place in separate fora. Washington and Moscow agreed to open exploratory talks on MBFR in exchange for US acceptance of the

European security conference for which Moscow had long been pushing. Nixon and

Brezhnev finalized the deal when the two met in Moscow in May.75

Preparatory talks for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

(CSCE) opened in November 1972, taking place in Dipoli, Finland, just outside Helsinki.

This phase was deemed critical to the Conference’s overall success: it would set the agenda. For the Western allies, it afforded an opportunity to seize the initiative and shape the Conference to better suit their own interests from the get-go.

74 CANDELNATO to External Affairs, “CSCE: French Views,” March 15, 1972, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 9087, File 20-4-CSCE, Part 18.

75 Haftendorn, “Link Between CSCE and MBFR,” 249-50. 44

Initial negotiations also began in January 1973 regarding force reductions in

Central Europe. Some greeted the Vienna talks with marked enthusiasm, even going so far as to herald them as the next Congress of Vienna.76 Negotiations between East and

West on forces diffused some of the public pressure for unilateral Western force reductions.77 But the difficulties facing the talks were plain from the outset: the participants even struggled to agree on their official nomenclature. NATO’s members had long referred to the negotiations by the acronym MBFR, but the Soviet Union objected to the term balanced. It might be used as a mechanism to force the Warsaw Pact to make greater reductions than the Western allies who had far fewer conventional forces deployed in Central Europe. The talks ended up being officially dubbed the Mutual

Reductions of Forces and Armaments in Central Europe (MRFACE), though the cumbersome name and unfortunate acronym were almost never used in the West. The issues themselves were complex, and few of the basic problems were resolved in the early rounds of discussion.78 These negotiations took place right until 1989, when they were superseded and replaced by the Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in

Europe (CFE).

Negotiations for the CSCE fared far better. The preparatory talks reached a final agreement, outlining four main areas for discussion. The Western allies had achieved

76 R. J. Hill, “MBFR,” International Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Spring 1974): 245. 77 William Harben oral history interview, n.d., Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Harben,%20William%20N.toc.pdf, 67.

78 Memorandum, “Atlantic Relations,” n.d. [1974], GFPL, National Security Adviser, Presidential Agency File, Box 15, “NATO (1) 8/12/74-9/30/74” folder. 45

nearly all of their initial objectives, including securing a place on the agenda for discussions on the freer movement of peoples and information. After the initial round of consultations ended in June 1973, the Conference’s thirty-five participating states began substantive talks in Geneva. Throughout these negotiations, NATO continued to serve as a consultative forum for the exchange of Western views. It remained of the utmost importance to prevent a split in the Alliance.

By and large, it was the continental European allies who shaped the West’s approach to the Conference. The Dutch delegation, for example, was tenacious in its pursuit of more robust provisions regarding human rights.79 The Canadians, too, saw its value and actively worked to secure concessions on issues like family reunification.80

This leadership was made possible, in part, by its absence elsewhere in the Alliance. In

London, Edward Heath’s Conservative government viewed the whole exercise with skepticism. It seemed a classic propaganda play by Moscow, designed to lull the Western

Europeans into a false sense of security, rendering the continent a “sort of Soviet

Disneyland.”81 Nixon and Kissinger shared this pessimistic view, expressing little interest in the talks. Compared to their Western European and Canadian counterparts, the US delegation at the CSCE lacked direction. The Nixon White House offered no meaningful

79 Floribert Baudet, “‘It was Cold War and we wanted to win’: Human Rights, ‘Detente’, and the CSCE,” in Origins of the European Security System, 183-98. 80 Canada’s approach to the CSCE talks is covered well in Michael Cotey Morgan, “North America, Atlanticism, and the making of the Helsinki Final Act,” in Origins of the European Security System, 34-40.

81 Quoted in Keith Hamilton, “Cold War by other means: British diplomacy and the conference on security and cooperation in Europe, 1972–1975,” in The Making of Détente, 171. 46

instructions, a sharp contrast to all of the other allies who had prepared detailed positions in advance of the second round of discussions.82

With the talks on the verge of wrapping up, Washington’s attitude suddenly changed. Years of US ambivalence about the entire process evaporated. Kissinger, in particular, began to take an active interest in the Conference. The National Security

Adviser’s change of heart reflected, to some degree, the changing political landscape at home. Both the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, linking US-Soviet trade to the emigration of

Jews from the Soviet Union, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s expulsion made the Soviet

Union’s record on human rights a familiar issue to American voters.83 Kissinger, in these final months, pushed for greater concessions from the Soviet Union on human rights, looking to leverage Moscow’s desire to wrap up the Conference into additional gains for the West on this politically charged topic.84

Representatives from thirty-three European states, the United States, and Canada gathered to sign the Helsinki Final Act on August 1, 1975. Often seen as the apogee of détente, the Conference’s final agreement covered a wide array of topics.85 It was

82 Morgan, “North America, Atlanticism, and the making of the Helsinki Final Act,” 30; Sarah B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 28. 83 Morgan, “North America, Atlanticism, and the making of the Helsinki Final Act,” 33. 84 Jussi M. Hanhimäki, “‘They Can Write it in Swahili’: Kissinger, the Soviets, and the Helsinki Accords, 1973–75,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2003): 52-4.

85 Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower Détente: A Reappraisal (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1988), 10, 63; Wallensteen, “American Soviet Détente: What Went Wrong?,” 1. A pair of edited volumes dealing with détente illustrates this common arc clearly: Wilfried Loth and Georges- Henri Soutou’s The Making of Détente ends in 1975, where Leopoldo Nuti’s The Crisis of Detente in Europe begins. 47

composed of four ‘baskets,’ dealing with issues ranging from cultural exchanges to state borders, confidence-building measures to human rights. Basket I outlined ten principles governing inter-state relations, while the second basket addressed economic and scientific cooperation. Basket III dealt with person-to-person contacts, including human contacts and cultural and information exchanges. Finally, the agreement’s often-overlooked fourth basket included provisions for follow-on conferences, designed to review the ongoing implementation of the accords.86 Together these baskets reflected a multi-faceted and multilateral accord.

The Helsinki Final Act was a consensus document, hardly a surprising result given that it was the product of years of negotiations between thirty-five different states.

But this meant that the document itself was ambiguous. If the Helsinki Final Act represented détente in Europe, the definition of this détente was far from clear. The

Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies touted the principles enshrined in Basket I, such as the inviolability of borders, while NATO’s members highlighted the breakthroughs made in the agreement regarding human rights.87 At the Helsinki Summit, speaker after speaker from the West pointed to the Final Act’s potential to change people’s everyday lives.88 The agreement constituted “an agenda for change,” reflecting a bridge-building

86 “Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe,” http://www.osce.org/helsinki-final-act? download=true. 87 “Summary record of a meeting of the Council held at the NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on Friday, 19th September, 1975 at 10.30 a.m.,” 8 Oct. 1975, NATO, C-R(75)39; Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 30-1.

88 “Western leaders are cautious in opening speeches at Helsinki,” July 31, 1975, The Globe and Mail. 48

approach toward détente.89 Increased contacts and connections across the Iron Curtain, according to this transformative approach, could encourage change in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe. At the same time, the Helsinki Final Act also expressed the Soviet view that the best possible means of preserving peace in Europe would be to create clear divisions between states (and blocs) and to prevent major revisions to the system.90 This logic underpinned Basket I’s principles on inter-state relations, including the Soviets’ long-coveted guarantee regarding the inviolability of borders.

Beyond their participation in the MBFR and CSCE negotiations, the Western allies also established new institutions designed to showcase their new role as advocates for détente. NATO’s International Secretariat established a special section devoted to questions of disarmament and arms control. Here, officials noted, the fifteen allies could continue and deepen their existing consultations.91 Allied public diplomacy regularly highlighted Alliance consultations and the institutions working to reduce Cold War tensions. One 1968 pamphlet covering the basic functions of the Atlantic Alliance entitled

Why NATO? drew readers’ attention to the allied commitment to disarmament and arms

89 Richard Davy, “Helsinki myths: setting the record straight on the Final Act of the CSCE, 1975,” Cold War History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2009): 14. 90 Michael Cotey Morgan, “Trust and Transparency at the CSCE, 1969-1975,” in Trust, but Verify: The Politics of Uncertainty and the Transformation of the Cold War Order, 1969–1991, ed. Martin Klimke, Reinhild Kreis, and Christian F. Ostermann (Washington and Stanford: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/ Stanford University Press, 2016), 113.

91 A.G. Kuhn, “NATO and Disarmament,” NATO Letter, Vol. 17, No. 1 (January 1969): 19. 49

control initiatives.92 NATO Letter and its successor, NATO Review, carried articles on

NATO’s role in disarmament and the Alliance’s regular consultations.93

Other developments, too, challenged the image of NATO as a purely military alliance. The Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS), established in

November 1969, “added a third dimension” to NATO’s functions: serving as a forum to coordinate international environmental and scientific collaborations.94 Nixon’s proposal alarmed some at NATO, who viewed it as a distraction from détente.95

Ostpolitik and Détente

Regardless of the recent proliferation of multilateral talks in East-West relations, most of the major breakthroughs achieved in the early 1970s came through strictly bilateral engagement. Within a year of becoming Chancellor, Willy Brandt, working closely with his key advisor, Egon Bahr, had already concluded treaties with the Soviet Union and

Poland, the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw. The two Germanys signed the Basic Treaty in 1972, paving the way for the admission of both to the United Nations. The next year,

92 “Why NATO?,” August 1968, NATO, PDD NP 1968. 93 For some examples, see Kuhn, “NATO and Disarmament,” 17-9; A.G. Kühn, “Active Disarmament Consultations in NATO,” NATO Letter, Vol. 18, No. 3 (March 1970): 20-3; “SALT Makes Important Progress - NATO Consultation Continues,” NATO Letter, Vol. 18, Nos. 10/11 (October 1970): 19-20; Alfred G. Kühn, “Some Movement in Arms Control Field During First Year of UN’s Disarmament Decade,” NATO Letter, Vol. 19, Nos. 3 & 4 (March 1971): 23-7; “SALT,” NATO Letter, Vol. 19, Nos. 7/8 (July 1971): 6-7; Roger Hill, “MBFR Prelude: Explorations Before Negotiations,” NATO Letter, Vol. 20, Nos. 7/8 (July/August 1972): 3-4. 94 Elise Nouël, “Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society and NATO’s Third Dimension,” NATO Letter, Vol. 18, No. 2 (February 1970): 1.

95 Evanthis Hatzvassiliou, “Nixon’s Coup: Establishing the NATO Committee on the Challenges of the Modern Society, 1969–1970,” The International History Review, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2016): 88-108. 50

Brandt’s government signed an agreement with Czechoslovakia and established diplomatic relations with Bulgaria and Hungary. But Richard Nixon was not to be outdone. The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Agreement on Measures to

Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War in September 1971. Nixon and Brezhnev exchanged high-profile visits, meeting in Moscow in May 1972 and again in California the next year. During the Moscow Summit alone, the two leaders concluded ten different accords.96

Bilateral efforts to pursue détente, be they Nixon and Kissinger’s détente, Brandt and Bahr’s Ostpolitik, or any of the thirteen other allies’ various overtures to the East, were unlikely to stop. Domestic political pressures incentivized bilateral moves, as individual allied leaders looked to burnish their own credentials and prove that they, too, were playing a leading role in the relaxation of Cold War tensions.97 So long as bilateral relations shaped détente, the Alliance remained in an uncomfortable position. The Soviet

Union might pursue détente with one or a handful of the NATO allies, using it as a wedge to ultimately split the transatlantic partnership.98 What if détente could in fact be used to peel off the Western allies, one by one?

96 James Cameron, “Moscow, 1972,” in Transcending the Cold War: Summits, Statecraft, and the Dissolution of Bipolarity in Europe, 1970-1990, ed. Kristina Spohr and David Reynolds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 68. 97 “The Next Ten Years in East-West and Trans-Atlantic Relations,” GFPL, National Security Adviser, Kissinger-Scowcroft West Wing Office Files, General Subject File, Box 25, “United Kingdom - (2), 2/22/73 - 3/22/73” folder.

98 “The Next Ten Years in East-West and Trans-Atlantic Relations,” Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (GFPL), National Security Adviser, Kissinger-Scowcroft West Wing Office Files, Box 25, “United Kingdom - (2), 2/22/73 - 3/22/73” folder. 51

Such nightmares almost always began with the Germans. Ostpolitik brought back a flood of negative historical memories and shoddy analogies. What if the government in

Bonn decided to reach an accord with the Soviets on their own? Bonn’s transatlantic partners fretted once more about the possibility that the Germans might sign an agreement with Moscow akin to the Treaty of Rapallo or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

None, it seemed, worried more than Henry Kissinger. Over the years, Nixon’s National

Security Adviser made countless remarks regarding Ostpolitik and the dangers inherent in

German nationalism. There was a “German problem” in every generation. This time around, Kissinger was sure, it was Ostpolitik.99

Brandt’s government offered repeated assurances that Ostpolitik was fundamentally Western in its orientation. Bonn’s policies toward the East were, as defense minister Helmut Schmidt once described them, “firmly embedded in the fabric of a strong Western Alliance.”100 Katharina Focke, the Parliamentary Secretary for the

Chancellery, stressed that the government would prefer the label be abandoned entirely.

The very term Ostpolitik—Eastern policy, in English—focused attention solely on the eastward-looking components of the Federal Republic’s foreign policy, “distract[ing]

99 Gottfried Niedhart, “Ostpolitik and its impact on the Federal Republic’s relationship with the West,” in The Making of Détente, 127.

100 Schmidt remarks, 16th North Atlantic Assembly, November 1970, excerpted in Gerard von Rossum, “North Atlantic Assembly 16th Annual Session The Hague 6-10 November 1970,” NATO Letter, Vol. 18, No. 12 (December 1970): 17. 52

from the inseparable connection between the strands of our policy towards the East and the West.”101

Nixon and Kissinger, in many respects, envisioned and developed their own policy of détente in response to Ostpolitik. Nixon had come to office in 1969 declaring an

“era of negotiations,” but it was Brandt’s Ostpolitik that actually yielded tangible results in 1969 and 1970.102 Bonn’s newfound confidence and rapid progress were seen as a problem in Washington, not least because it played on both Nixon and Kissinger’s personal sense of insecurity. Beyond fears that Brandt’s government might go too far, the

Nixon White House’s reaction reflected anxieties about the United States’ position as the leader of the transatlantic partnership. US foreign policy was deeply unpopular. Across the Alliance, young people took to the streets to denounce Washington’s continued presence in Vietnam.

Nixon and Kissinger’s détente also responded to a changing international landscape. Still bogged down in Vietnam and wary that US power was in decline, the two men hoped to manage these new realities by pursuing a static détente.103 Nixon and

Kissinger conceived of détente as a fundamentally conservative policy, hoping to contain the damage caused by the fracturing foreign policy consensus at home and the emerging strategic parity between the superpowers. Détente, as seen from Washington in 1969,

101 Katharina Focke, “German Foreign Policy Towards East and West,” NATO Letter, Vol. 20, Nos. 3/4 (March/April 1972): 4. 102 Nixon inaugural address, Washington, DC, January 20, 1969, PPP: Richard M. Nixon 1969 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1971), 3.

103 Kieninger, Dynamic Détente, 86-8; Morgan, “North America, Atlanticism and the CSCE,” 42. 53

would help to manage the United States’ relative decline.104 Through the policy of détente, Kissinger later recalled, the Nixon administration hoped to deter the Western

European allies from pursuing their own “unilateral initiatives” without US participation or consent. The Nixon-Kissinger version of détente was calculated to send a particular message: if there were to be any form of competitive détente between the Western allies, the United States would win.105 Using détente as a mechanism to assert US leadership in transatlantic relations unsurprisingly revived earlier fears that Washington would negotiate with the Soviets over the heads of the other NATO allies.106 While Kissinger worried that Brandt and Bahr might sell out the Alliance to reach an accord with Moscow, fears abounded that Kissinger and Nixon might well do the very same thing. Some of the allies worried that the Nixon administration “may have actually reached secret agreements with the [Soviet Union] on matters like MBFR.”107

Though both aroused fears of a double-cross, there were clear differences between

Nixon’s approach to détente and Brandt’s policy of Ostpolitik.108 The former reflected a

104 Hanhimäki, “Conservative goals, revolutionary outcomes,” 504; Daniel J. Sargent, A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 43. 105 Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982), 136. 106 Kissinger to Ford, “Meeting with Joseph Luns, Secretary General of NATO,” February 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Staff Files, General Subject File, Box 53, “North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1975 (2) WH” folder. 107 “Letter: Carrington to Heath,” November 29, 1972, DBPO, series III, vol. IV, The Year of Europe: America, Europe and the Energy Crisis, 1972-1974 (London: The Stationery Office, 2006), doc. 14.

108 The conceptual differences between the Federal Republic’s Ostpolitik and US détente policies in the early 1970s are explored in Holger Klitzing, “To Grin and Bear It: The Nixon Administration and Ostpolitik,” in Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and global responses, ed. Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 80-110; Gottfried Niedhart, “U.S. Détente and West German Ostpolitik: Parallels and Frictions,” in The Strained Alliance, 23-44; Bernd Schaefer, “The Nixon Administration and West German Ostpolitik, 1969–1973,” in The Strained Alliance, 45-64. 54

desire to manage relations with the Soviet Union and reduce the prospects of nuclear war in a way that offered Washington maximum influence, even as US power declined.

Whereas the Nixon-Kissinger détente amounted to a tacit endorsement of the status quo,

Ostpolitik was built on the idea of transformation in the long term. Brandt’s personal background played a role here, as did the early thinking of his right hand man, Bahr.

Brandt’s tenure as the mayor of West Berlin had transformed his approach to the Cold

War. After the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, he revisited the very foundations of existing transatlantic policy and found them wanting. To Brandt, it seemed clear that Washington would do little to solve the German question and that it would be up to Germans themselves to find a resolution. He began pushing for engagement, however limited, across the Iron Curtain.109 Brandt concluded an agreement with the East German government, enabling West Berliners to visit relatives in the city’s Eastern sector over

Christmas 1963. These conceptual and strategic differences added yet another layer to the confusion over what détente meant. Both Bonn’s and Washington’s respective approaches to improving relations with the East were seen as inseparable from a strong transatlantic partnership. But their preferred means differed, as did their conclusions about the ideal outcome. Could Bonn’s transformative ideas of “change through rapprochement” be reconciled with Nixon and Kissinger’s desire to manage and stabilize superpower relations?

109 Hofmann, The Emergence of Détente in Europe, esp. 175-81. 55

Competing Western strategies to improve East-West relations were only one part of the puzzle. The Soviet Union had its own objectives to be achieved through a relaxation of tensions. The pursuit of détente had been a logical evolution of the

“revolutionary-imperial paradigm” after Stalin’s death. Nikita Khrushchev had, under the banner of ‘peaceful coexistence,’ moved to strengthen Soviet ties with the Eastern

European states as a security buffer and expanded economic relations with the West.110

Both reflected a Soviet fear of encirclement—and a foreign policy motivated by attempts to offset this risk.

After Leonid Brezhnev took over as General Secretary in 1964, détente increasingly promised a possible solution to Moscow’s considerable economic woes, a motive recognized by countless Western observers. There were also the same arguments made in Washington: the need to reduce the prospects of nuclear annihilation, seen as a shared responsibility of the two superpowers. There were also personal motivations.

Brezhnev personally believed in the value of the policy and worked to build the necessary consensus to see it through, made possible by his own leadership style and affinity for patronage.111

Moscow’s view of détente differed from those in the West, emphasizing the distinction between the policy’s ‘external’ and ‘internal’ versions. The former revolved

110 Vladislav Zubok, “The Soviet Union and détente of the 1970s,” Cold War History, Vol. 8, No. 4 (November 2008): 428. On the “revolutionary-imperial paradigm” as a theoretical framework to understand Soviet foreign policy, see Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), esp. 2-7.

111 Zubok, A Failed Empire, 222-3. 56

around relations between states, an area where Brezhnev’s Soviet Union proved willing to negotiate throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. The latter, however, was a topic which provoked considerable Soviet resistance: liberalization and the movement of people and ideas across the Iron Curtain. Could the Eastern and Western views of détente be reconciled? Could any policy designed to strengthen détente by developing a network of mutual interests be successful if Moscow’s own approach was strictly tactical?112

Conclusion

Détente and defense became NATO’s public branding. The double philosophy laid out in the Harmel Report shaped the Alliance’s public diplomacy efforts, as the Western allies worked throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s to project an image of NATO as an alliance for peace. Real breakthroughs in East-West relations undoubtedly made the task easier. MBFR and the CSCE were regularly held up as signs of the West’s commitment to reducing Cold War tensions and, crucially, the Alliance’s role therein.

NATO’s public emphasis on détente did not reflect any sort of allied consensus about the policy or its execution. The Harmel exercise had done little to reconcile the competing definitions within the Alliance, instead pushing out détente as a task with no agreed-upon consensus to back it up. Behind the scenes, the Western allies consulted at length about the ongoing MBFR talks and throughout the negotiating rounds of the

CSCE. But the fifteen partners did not share a vision of what should be achieved in

112 Senior Political Committee paper (enclosure), November 27, 1974, NATO, C-M(74)81(2nd revise). 57

relations with the Soviet Union or the Eastern Europeans. Bilateral policies also reflected competing interpretations. The fundamental differences between Washington’s détente and Bonn’s Ostpolitik in the early 1970s were the most obvious example of an Alliance divided about the very purpose of détente. NATO and its individual members, however, continued to score quick and easy points with voters by wrapping the Alliance in the mantle of détente. The chance to do so, it turned out, would be short-lived. Chapter 2: Falling Behind?

“The Alliance is in extremely bad shape.”1 — The Times (London), 1975

“What does the spirit of Helsinki and spirit of detente mean for us within the Soviet Union? The strengthening of totalitarianism. What seems to you to be a milder atmosphere […] is for us the strengthening of totalitarianism.

I would like to emphasize […] You think that this is a respite, but it is an imaginary respite. It’s a respite before destruction. As for us, we have no respite at all. We are being strangled even more, with greater determination.”2 — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1976

Even at its seeming height, détente was not without its critics. Opposition politicians challenged the agreements reached with the East, charging that the governments responsible had been duped. Members of the more conservative Christian Democratic

Union (Christlich Demokratische Union, CDU), now in opposition after dominating West

German politics for nearly two decades, denounced the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw.

Ostpolitik faced scathing criticism, much of it aimed at the treaties’ chief architect, Egon

Bahr. At best, Bahr’s decisions had been naive; at worst, they were nothing short of treason.3 Senator Henry M. Jackson became a household name. He opposed the Nixon

1 “NATO In Bad Shape,” May 27, 1975, The Times. 2 “Solzhenitsyn on Détente: “The West Gives Everything Away”,” March 15, 1976, U.S. News & World Report.

3 Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists: The Christian Democrats and West German Ostpolitik (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), 75. For a reassessment of the two treaties, see William Glenn Gray, “Paradoxes of Ostpolitik: Revisiting the Moscow and Warsaw Treaties, 1970,” Central European History, Vol. 49 (2016): 409-40. 58 59

administration’s efforts to expand US-Soviet trade, insisting that economic relations could—and should—be used to achieve change on the other side of the Iron Curtain. If the Soviet Union hoped to ameliorate its dire economic situation through increased ties with the West, this should be used to Washington’s advantage. “As we move to increase trade,” Jackson argued, “let us move to decrease tyranny. As we talk about free trade, let us talk about free people.”4

The very person-to-person connections intended to transcend the Cold War’s divisions also contributed to skepticism about détente. Dissidents in the Soviet Union called into question the benefits of this new climate: it did little to transform the Soviet system or to improve the lives of citizens in the Eastern bloc. Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear physicist-turned-activist, warned that détente would be “very dangerous” if it was not accompanied by a corresponding program of democratization within the Soviet

Union.5 The dissident writer Andrei Amalrik, famous in the West for 1970’s Will the

Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?, rejected outright the notion that political ties and economic relations between East and West would “‘soften up’ the Soviet Union,” as so many in the West seemed to hope. Rather, these ties merely strengthened “the very idea of totalitarianism.”6 Warnings like these were transmitted and repeated by friends,

4 Henry Jackson, message to the Soviet Jewry Rally, May 6, 1973, University of Washington Special Collections, Henry M. Jackson Papers, 3560-006, 10/23. 5 Robert G. Kaiser, “Soviet H-Bomb Physicist Warns West on Détente,” August 22, 1973, The Washington Post.

6 Andrei Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?, revised and expanded edition, ed. Hilary Sternberg (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980), 108. 60

colleagues, and journalists throughout the West; personal relationships helped to draw public attention to the everyday challenges of life east of the Iron Curtain.7

By the middle of the 1970s, problems beset both prongs of the Harmel Report’s double philosophy. A growing number of critics charged that the relaxation of Cold War tensions bolstered a totalitarian system, failed to constrain Soviet behavior, and left the

West at a disadvantage thanks to a string of bad deals. Critics insisted that détente had enabled the Soviet Union to get ahead, charges which played on broader anxieties about the West’s position in the world. Economic difficulties haunted allied governments, many of whom clung to power by the slimmest of electoral margins. The Western allies faced oil shocks and energy shortages. High unemployment rates accompanied inflation, leading to a new economic affliction christened ‘stagflation.’ Western citizens worried about their own security as West German nightclubs, Israeli Olympians, and London mailboxes fell victim to the rising tide of international terrorism. The Soviet Union was on the march in the Third World and, it seemed, in Europe as well. Could NATO overcome all of these challenges? Could the Alliance even weather the storm?

Transatlantic Troubles

On April 23, 1973, in a speech before a gathering of journalists in New York City, Henry

Kissinger called for the rejuvenation of the Atlantic Alliance starting with what he termed

“a new Atlantic Charter.” He spoke frankly and openly about the challenges now facing

7 Vladislav Zubok, Zhivago’s Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 304. 61

the West. His remarks touched on the shifting balance of power, pointing to the emergence of new power centers like Japan and the changing balance between the United

States and the Soviet Union. He posed questions about the new realities of international affairs, brought about by Western Europe’s post-war recovery and the new climate of détente. With this rather pessimistic speech, Kissinger jumpstarted the administration’s so-called Year of Europe.8

From the perspective of the Nixon White House, the Year of Europe was intended as a “rectification campaign” to overcome the difficulties of recent years.9 The Vietnam

War had undermined Western confidence in the United States and its leadership. A decline in Washington’s relative economic position threatened to force the administration’s hand in foreign policy, leading to undesirable trade-offs between the economy and national security.10 France’s lukewarm attitude toward NATO and “the ever-present German temptations to be diverted by siren songs from the East” needed to

8 Kissinger remarks, annual meeting of the Associated Press editors, New York, New York, April 23, 1973, The Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 68 (May 14, 1973): 593-8. A number of excellent works exist on the Year of Europe. For a detailed treatment, highlighting the initiative’s impact on European integration, see Daniel Möckli, “Asserting Europe’s Distinct Identity: The EC Nine and Kissinger’s Year of Europe,” in The Strained Alliance, 195-220. See also Luke A. Nichter, Richard Nixon and Europe: The Reshaping of the Postwar Atlantic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 103-24. The idea of a ‘Year of Europe’ dated back to the autumn of 1972, though at the time few could figure out where the phrase had actually originated: “Letter: Archer to H B Walker,” March 1, 1973, DBPO, series III, vol. IV, doc. 12; “Letter: B L Crowe to Archer,” March 12, 1973, DBPO, series III, vol. IV, doc. 13. 9 James E. Goodby oral history, December 10, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Goodby, %20James%20E.toc.pdf, 56.

10 “Minutes of Senior Review Group Meeting,” January 31, 1973, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. E-15, part 2, Documents on Western Europe, 1973–1976 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2014), doc. 5. 62

be managed. Kissinger’s description of the scheme was grand: “a period of genuine creativity in adapting Atlantic relations to new conditions.”11

Across the Atlantic, Kissinger’s April 23 speech felt more like an opening salvo than an invitation to deepen and reshape transatlantic ties. He referred to Western

Europe’s interests as “regional,” contrasting them to the “global interests and responsibilities” of the United States.12 It was as if the Nixon administration, now at the beginning of its second term, had suddenly rediscovered that the Europeans still existed after years of focusing on issues Washington deemed more important. The exercise’s framing left many of the Europeans convinced that it was nothing more than an attempt to reassert US leadership at their expense. Kissinger’s tone reflected “general scorn for

‘the Europeans,’” leading one British official to wonder whether his disdain stemmed

“from some repressed feeling of guilt that he [had] deserted his intellectual heritage.”13

European integration was described as a second order function of transatlantic unity.

Even Kissinger’s choice of analogies was clumsy. Harkening back to the Atlantic Charter, an accord between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt so often held up as the foundation of the “special relationship” between London and Washington, hardly seemed

11 Kissinger to Nixon, “Next Steps in The Year of Europe,” May 11, 1973, GFPL, Kissinger-Scowcroft West Wing Office Files, Box 25, “United Kingdom - (4), 4/19/73 - 5/25/73” folder. 12 Kissinger remarks, annual meeting of the Associated Press editors, New York, New York, April 23, 1973, The Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 68 (May 14, 1973): 593-8.

13 “Letter: Cromer to Brimelow,” March 7, 1973, DBPO, series III, vol. IV, doc. 15. 63

to set the tone for a reassessment of the entire transatlantic partnership.14 British Prime

Minister Edward Heath thought the scheme absurd and offensive. “For Henry Kissinger to announce a Year of Europe without consulting any of us,” Heath fumed, “was rather like my standing between the lions in Trafalgar Square and announcing that we were embarking on a year to save America!”15

The Year of Europe also reflected a sense of apprehension that NATO was losing ground among Western publics as part of a broader generational shift now underway. All too easily, the Alliance and its success might be taken for granted. As the Second World

War receded from memory, officials throughout the Alliance wondered whether future generations would continue to appreciate the rationale behind NATO’s founding. An entire generation had come of age since 1949, and their formative memories were no longer those of the 1940s. This latest generation did not remember the Second World

War, the coup in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Blockade, or the Marshall Plan. Instead, their thinking had been shaped by the Vietnam War and the global upheavals and student protests of 1968.16 Few Western citizens seemed to appreciate the purpose of NATO beyond a vague understanding that it served as an insurance policy. The Western allies could no longer assume that a fear of communism was enough to keep NATO together;

“even though the pace of rearmament in Russia has not slackened at all,” British foreign

14 On the Year of Europe’s links to Anglo-American relations, see Matthew Jones, ““A Man in a Hurry”: Henry Kissinger, Transatlantic Relations, and the British Origins of the Year of Europe,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2013): 77-99. 15 Edward Heath, The Course of My Life: My Autobiography (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1998), 493.

16 Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 136. 64

secretary Alec Douglas-Home concluded in one 1973 speech, “the external challenge is less clear.”17 If the Atlantic Alliance were to survive, the thinking went, they would need to find other ties to bind them.18

More setbacks came that autumn after war broke out in the Middle East. The

October War contributed to an acute sense of crisis in transatlantic relations. It divided the United States and its Western European partners, fueling perceptions that the two sides were no longer on the same page. Shortly after Egyptian and Syrian forces invaded

Israel, the Nixon administration moved to curb Moscow’s influence in the region. As the

Soviet Union airlifted military supplies to Syria, Washington requested to use NATO airbases to stage the airlift of US materiel to Israel. The Western Europeans rejected this request, with eight of the EC nine opposing it outright. Only the Netherlands agreed. The

Portuguese allowed Washington use the strategically important Azores, though only after a few well-placed threats from Nixon.19

And the transatlantic rift only deepened. On October 25, the Nixon White House moved to put US nuclear forces in Western Europe on alert for the first—and, as it turned out, only—time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Like Cuba before it, the US decision to place the forces on alert was made without consulting the allies in advance. If war were to break out with the Soviet Union, it seemed, there would be no consultation.

17 “Extract from speech by Douglas-Home,” April 27, 1973, DPBO, series III, vol. IV, doc. 8. 18 “Paper Prepared in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs,” n.d. [1973], FRUS 1969-1976, vol. E-15, part 2, doc. 12; Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 1027.

19 Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe Since 1945: From “Empire” by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 162. 65

Washington would take action on its own. NATO’s Secretary General Joseph Luns offered near-constant reminders about the value of consultation in the days and months that ensued. Consultation between all fifteen members and under the auspices of NATO was vital to the health of the Alliance. Other consultations à quatre or only among the EC nine were no substitute for the complete fifteen.20 The ensuing peace process, too, divided the Western allies. Kissinger assumed that the United States would occupy a leading role; the EC nine thought differently and called for a series of European-Arab talks, along with peace negotiations through the United Nations.

1974 began with economic doom and gloom. Inflation was on the rise, as was unemployment. The price of oil skyrocketed, thanks in large part to the Arab states’ oil embargo after the outbreak of the 1973 war. By March, oil was being sold at nearly $12 a barrel, quadruple the price of six months earlier. Alongside these “oil shocks,” a number of the allies faced balance of payments problems. Efforts to develop a coordinated

Western approach to these issues were slow and spotty.21 NATO turned twenty-five in

April, though the anniversary was met with little fanfare. A summit was held in Brussels in June, though many viewed it as a little more than a distraction from the Watergate scandal brewing on the other side of the Atlantic. Even the Alliance’s own magazine concluded that it had been, to borrow one of the issue’s headlines, “twenty-five years of

20 Luns report, “Annual Political Appraisal,” June 5, 1974, NATO, C-M(74)37.

21 “1974 in Review,” undated [1975], GFPL, Presidential Handwriting File, Box 25, “Int. Orgs. NATO (1)” folder. 66

ups and downs.”22 The Year of Europe culminated in a Declaration on Atlantic Relations, though the exercise had hardly yielded the creative thinking or the sweeping renewal of their collective pledge that Kissinger had envisioned. “An affirmation of unity requiring no concrete action that nevertheless takes fourteen months to negotiate is hardly a sign of moral rededication,” he later quipped in his memoirs.23 Despite all these difficulties, transatlantic relations did improve somewhat over the course of 1974. Economic relations between the United States and the Western Europeans improved gradually, as the allies tried to resolve some of the most damaging energy issues.24

A clean political slate also helped. Within just six months, the governments of

France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States all changed. Edward Heath’s Conservative government lost the British election of March

1974, replaced by Labour under the leadership of Harold Wilson. French President

George Pompidou died in office in April, succeeded by his minister of the economy, the centrist Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. The next month, Willy Brandt resigned as Chancellor after it came to light that one of his most trusted aides, Günter Guillaume, was in fact an

East German spy. Helmut Schmidt, Brandt’s outspoken and confident minister of finance, took his place. Richard Nixon resigned in August, disgraced and facing certain

22 “Twenty-Five Years of Ups and Downs,” NATO Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1974): 3. 23 Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 1161.

24 Memorandum, “Atlantic Relations,” undated [1974], GFPL, National Security Adviser, Presidential Agency File, Box 15, “NATO (1) 8/12/74-9/30/74” folder. 67

impeachment in the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford, who had only just become vice president the previous December, inherited the unenviable task of picking up the pieces.

From the outset, Ford looked to reassure Washington’s transatlantic partners about the new administration’s willingness to remain engaged in the world—and in Europe.25

Along with Henry Kissinger, who stayed on in the new administration as both Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Ford made a point of meeting with the NATO ambassadors on his very first day in office.26 Before NATO’s Brussels Summit in May

1975, press reports pointed to the need for Washington to reassert its leadership. Coming on the heels of the fall of Saigon, yet another sign of declining US global power, Ford faced “a Western Europe hungry for reassurance” that the United States remained willing and able to lead, though still deeply skeptical as to whether the administration could back up any such reassurances.27 The New York Times summed the sense of anxiety up under the headline: “The Europeans Wonder If the President Is a President.”28 The NATO summit afforded an opportunity to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to Europe and to the Alliance in a high-profile setting in the post-Vietnam era.

25 N. Piers Ludlow, “The Real Years of Europe? U.S.–West European Relations during the Ford Administration,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Summer 2013): 139-46. 26 Kissinger memorandum for the president’s file, “Meeting with NATO Ambassadors and Charges d'Affaires Friday, August 9, 1974, 2:00 p. m. - The Roosevelt Room, The White House,” August 9, 1974, GFPL, National Security Adviser, Presidential Agency File, Box 15, “NATO (1) 8/12/74-9/30/74” folder. 27 Gerald Ford, “Interview With European Journalists,” May 23, 1975, PPP: Gerald R. Ford (GF), 1975, vol. 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), 705.

28 Andre Fontaine, “The Europeans Wonder If the President Is a President,” May 25, 1975, The New York Times. 68

NATO’s problems once more seemed as numerous as they were severe. Portugal’s dictatorship had collapsed in 1974, sparking a brief crisis when communists entered the new government. Eurocommunism seemed on the march. French and Italian voters appeared ready to bring communist parties to power. Greece withdrew from NATO’s integrated command structure, and Greco-Turkish relations soured once more over

Cyprus. Ford’s briefing papers for the Brussels Summit pessimistically concluded that the fifteen Western allies now faced more challenges than at any other point in the last thirty years.29 Even the fact that the allies felt it necessary to hold a summit was taken as a bad sign. NATO had held two summits in its first twenty-five years, meeting in Paris in 1957 and again in Brussels in 1974. Now, just a year later, they were planning another.30

One of the summit’s central objectives was to affirm the continued importance of the Harmel Report’s double philosophy. James Callaghan, the British foreign minister, insisted that a balance must be found between the two prongs. Leaning heavily on either, be it defense or détente, could leave the allies open to criticism.31 The allies needed to demonstrate that their commitment to an adequate defense was undiminished and, in particular, that the United States would remain engaged in Europe.32 Secretary General

29 Department of State briefing paper, “Objectives and Issues,” May 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Files, Ford Trips File, Box 69, “May-June 1975 – European Trip – North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit (1) WH” folder. 30 Luns report, “Annual Political Appraisal,” May 20, 1975, NATO, C-M(75)32. 31 US Embassy, London to State, “NATO Summit and Détente,” May 20, 1975, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/1-FY2013/F-2011-01527/ DOC_0C17669629/C17669629.pdf.

32 Department of State briefing paper, “Objectives and Issues,” May 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Files, Ford Trips File, Box 69, “May-June 1975 – European Trip – North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit (1) WH” folder. 69

Joseph Luns warned that the preservation of a strong defense posture would be one of the more pressing issues, if not the most, facing the Western allies in the years to come.

Further improvements in East-West relations, he cautioned, could only take place if the

Alliance invested in and preserved an adequate defense.33 The Brussels Summit’s final communiqué indicated the possible problems ahead: it pointed explicitly to the continued growth of the Warsaw Pact’s military capabilities, as well as the challenges facing the

West’s own defense posture as a result of the current dismal economic climate.34

Détente and its Discontents

“Jerry, don’t go,” one Wall Street Journal editorial famously implored the president in advance of the Helsinki Summit to conclude the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.35 The agreement was derided as an “ersatz peace treaty.”36 Basket I’s clauses, including the promise that frontiers would be seen as inviolable, provoked a backlash throughout the West. Critics likened the Final Act to another Yalta. It had carved up

Europe and divided it between the superpowers. One British association of Eastern

European emigres, the European Liaison Group, charged that the agreement was “a new

Peace Treaty conceding ‘de-facto’ the Soviet post-war conquests in Eastern and Central

33 Luns remarks, “Speech by Dr. Joseph M.A.H. Luns, Secretary General of NATO at the Opening Session of the NATO Ministerial Meeting Held in Brussels with the Participation of Heads of State and Heads of Government,” May 29, 1975, NATO, IS-PDD-PDD PR-SPEECH LUNS 29/05/1975. 34 Final communiqué, Brussels Summit, May 30, 1975, NATO, M1(75)12. 35 “Jerry, Don’t Go,” July 23, 1975, Wall Street Journal. The reference is Canadian, borrowed from the line “Julie, don’t go” in the 1958 Wayne & Shuster sketch of Julius Caesar on the Ed Sullivan show.

36 Flora Lewis, “Not a Treaty, but a Declaration of Intentions in Europe,” July 27, 1975, The New York Times. 70

Europe.”37 The Christian Democrats tabled a non-binding resolution in the Bundestag opposing the Helsinki Final Act.38 Senator Jackson derided détente as “a term that’s thrown around as a cover for everything.”39

Prior to the Helsinki Summit, the Department of State had already identified this type of thinking as the Conference’s “primary danger.”40 An agreement could easily be misinterpreted as a long-delayed peace conference for World War II. Even the scheduling took these concerns into account. The Ford administration worked to avoid holding the final summit in May, which would coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of V-E Day: a

May signing ceremony would be a boon to Soviet propagandists, making it all the easier for them to portray the Helsinki Final Act as a long-awaited post-war treaty, cementing the division of Europe and the Soviet Union’s control over the continent’s eastern half.41

The Department of State’s concerns also responded to the political debate already brewing in the United States over détente and its value as a policy. Long before Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, critics had begun to call into question the president’s handling of US-Soviet relations. Senator Henry M. Jackson was one of the fiercest. A

37 Memorandum from the European Liaison Group, “Memorandum on the final phase of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe,” July 1975, Archives Diplomatiques (AD), 436QO/220, “Sécurité C.S.C.E.” folder. 38 Ronald J. Granieri, “Odd Man Out? The CDU-CSU, Ostpolitik, and the Atlantic Alliance,” in The Strained Alliance, 97-8. 39 “Jackson criticizes Helsinki pact,” August 4, 1975, The Boston Globe. 40 Department of State briefing book, “The CSCE Summit: United States’ Objectives,” GFPL, National Security Adviser, Trip Briefing Books and Cables for President Ford, Box 10, “July 26 – August 4, 1975 – Europe Briefing Book – CSCE – Copy 1 (1)” folder.

41 Clift to Kissinger, “CSCE Issues Paper,” January 17, 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Files, Box 44, “Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1975 (1) WH” folder. 71

conservative Democrat from the state of Washington, Jackson concluded that the policy of détente—at least as it was practiced by Nixon and Kissinger—conferred advantage on the Soviet Union with little benefit to the United States. He went on the offensive, attacking the bargains struck with Moscow and pushing for greater concessions from the

Soviets. In 1972, Jackson tabled a resolution linking Nixon and Kissinger’s proposed trade agreement with the Soviet Union to a relaxation of Moscow’s policies on Jewish emigration. His initiative gained support and attracted publicity, embarrassing the Nixon administration and infuriating Moscow. In September 1973, 84 Soviet Jews wrote to

Congress endorsing this so-called Jackson-Vanik Amendment.

Ford’s accession to the presidency did little to offset concerns about how the

United States was doing business with the Soviets. But with Nixon gone, more and more of the opposition coalesced around Kissinger. His penchant for secretive diplomacy and balance-of-power politics made him a lightning rod for criticism. “Super K” was intimately associated with détente, seen as its “author and principal proponent.”42 Ford’s own lack of foreign policy experience—and lack of an electoral mandate—contributed to an image of the president as congenial but naive. Kissinger’s purported hunger for power and Ford’s inexperience worked in tandem, reinforcing the sense that it was Kissinger who called the shots within the administration. On the eve of the Helsinki Summit, Ford came under fire for refusing to attend an AFL-CIO event in honor of Solzhenitsyn. Ford’s press secretary, Ron Nessen, chalked the decision up to a busy schedule, but few found

42 Elliott to Ford, “1975 Presidential Correspondence,” January 12, 1976, GFPL, Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 15, “President-Mail Summaries” folder. 72

the White House’s explanation compelling. Ford had, after all, found time to meet the

Brazilian soccer star Pelé the week before.43 By mid-summer, the White House noted a new wave of anti-détente mail coming in, thanks in large part to the Helsinki Summit and

Solzhenitsyn’s presence in the United States. Letter-writers “began to suggest that détente was one-sided and not in the best interests of the [United States].” This correspondence was overwhelmingly negative: only 68 letters praised the Helsinki Final Act, while another 1,069 opposed it. An additional 10,000 letters were received, dedicated to the status of the Baltic states, “requesting that the U.S. recognize no change in the status or territorial integrity.”44

Basket I—the root of most of the Western opposition—did not include any new concessions. All of the territorial provisions included in the Final Act were already part of the record, recognized in Bonn’s earlier treaties with the Soviet Union, Poland, and East

Germany. “Nothing will change on the ground,” one Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assessment concluded.45 If, as so many critics charged, Eastern Europe “had been thrown to the wolves,” it had happened long before 1975. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for

Soviet and Eastern European Affairs Jack Armitage pointed to either 1956 or 1968 as the decisive moment. The West’s failure to intervene in the Hungarian Uprising or to protect the Prague Spring, Armitage insisted to his British counterparts, had done far more to

43 Philip Shabecoff, “Ford Avoided Visit by Solzhenitsyn,” July 3, 1975, The New York Times. 44 Elliott to Ford, “1975 Presidential Correspondence,” January 12, 1976, GFPL, Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 15, “President-Mail Summaries” folder.

45 Office of Current Intelligence memorandum, “CSCE: The View from Moscow,” July 18, 1975, NARA, CIA Records Search Tool (CREST), CIA-RDP86T00608R000300070050-8. 73

cement and legitimize the Soviet Union’s position in Eastern Europe than the Helsinki

Final Act would.46 One set of Ford’s talking points put it even more bluntly: those opposed to the inviolability of borders as a principle “should tell us which borders they think we should violate.”47

The Helsinki Final Act brought back memories of the Big Three’s meeting at

Yalta in February 1945. There, Franklin Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, and Winston Churchill had agreed to a communist-dominated provisional government in Poland alongside the promise of “free and unfettered elections as soon as possible.”48 As the Cold War set in, critics charged that the British and the Americans had given the Soviet Union control over Poland, accepting the Sovietization of Eastern Europe.49 It was a favorite refrain of

Charles de Gaulle: the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ had carved up Europe with the Russians.50

Throughout the negotiations for the CSCE, exile groups and emigre communities warned of another Yalta in the works. “1945 Yalta! 1975 Helsinki?,” read the cover of one

46 Cornish to Cartledge, “East-West Relations,” April 28, 1976, The National Archives of the United Kingdom (TNA-UK), FCO 28/2823. 47 “Talking Points on European Trip,” August 9, 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, Staff Assistant Peter Rodman Files, Box 2, “Chronological File, July-October 1975” folder. 48 “The Yalta Conference,” February 1945, The Avalon Project, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/yalta.asp. 49 Edward Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy: A Pattern in Poland (New York: Wiley, 1958), 442-4. For a discussion of this trend in the literature and a refutation of this interpretation, see Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 7-12. Such perceptions of Yalta as tacit acceptance of the Sovietization of Eastern Europe remain a common refrain in politics. In a 2005 speech in Riga, given the day before the president travelled to Moscow for a celebration of the 60th anniversary of V-E Day, George W. Bush described Yalta as “an attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability.” He went on, promising that “we will not repeat the mistakes of other generations - appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability.” Peter Beaumont and Dan McLaughlin, “Bush condemns Allies’ division of Europe at Yalta,” May 7, 2005, The Guardian; Serhii Plokhy, “Remembering Yalta: The Politics of International History,” The Harriman Review, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2009): 34-47.

50 Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires d’espoir: Le renouveau (Paris: Plon, 1970), 239. 74

pamphlet circulated by the Czechoslovak Consultative Committee in West Europe.51

Others went so far as to petition allied governments to implement “a policy of liberation for all the captive nations.”52

Not all viewed the Helsinki Final Act as another Yalta. Even as Western leaders came under fire for having sold Eastern Europe out to the Soviet Union, they worried about a wave of euphoria stemming from the Conference’s results. Such feelings of optimism might increase pressure on some of the Western allies to participate—and make concessions—in arms control talks with the East.53 CIA assessments worried that Britain,

France, and Italy would be particularly susceptible to such pressures.54 NATO’s official statements tried to temper public expectations. Public information guidelines circulated at

NATO, for instance, highlighted that the Conference would not diminish the need to maintain an adequate defense.55 Emphasizing the Harmel Report’s double philosophy at

51 Czechoslovak Consultative Committee in West Europe pamphlet, n.d., GFPL, Myron Kuropas Papers, Box 5, “Détente - Helsinki - Sonnenfeldt” folder. 52 Petition from the Council of Committees of People in Exile (Freedom-Seekers) for Liberation of All Russian Occupied Countries, May 28, 1976, GFPL, Myron Kuropas Papers, Box 5, “Détente - Helsinki - Sonnenfeldt” folder. 53 Luns, Ford et al. memorandum of conversation, February 24, 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Files, Box 69, “May-June 1975 – European Trip – North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit (1) WH” folder. 54 Office of Central Intelligence memorandum, “The CSCE and Western Europe -- Pluses and Minuses,” July 18, 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Files, Box 44, “Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1975 (1) NSC” folder.

55 Senior Political Committee report, “Public Information Aspect of a Possible CSCE Agreement,” June 26, 1975, NATO, C-M(75)41. 75

the Brussels Summit was seen as a chance to “lay the groundwork in Western public opinion” regarding the Helsinki Final Act.56

Allied policy-makers were also optimistic about the agreement itself. Signing the

Helsinki Final Act “turned out to be the biggest propaganda beating the Russians have taken in a long time.”57 Press coverage of the agreement across the Warsaw Pact downplayed “everything connected with Basket III” and its human rights provisions.58

The Soviet Union now seemed on the defensive.59 But what would this mean for East-

West relations going forward? Had talks in recent years dealt with all of the low-hanging fruit, thereby making it more unlikely that East and West would be able to reach meaningful agreements in the years to come?

Relations between the superpowers cooled over the second half of 1975, contributing to anxieties about détente’s prospects for the future. To Kissinger, Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko lamented the recent spike in statements which

“denigrated Soviet institutions.”60 Brezhnev publicly denounced what he termed the

West’s “misinformation” and “slander” regarding Soviet intentions in the world.61

56 Department of State briefing paper, “Objectives,” GFPL, National Security Adviser, Presidential Agency File, Box 15, “NATO (2) 10/1/74-12/10/74” folder. 57 “Talking Points on European Trip,” August 9, 1975, GFPL, National Security Adviser, Staff Assistant Peter Rodman Files, Box 2, “Chronological File, July-October 1975” folder. 58 “Summary record of a meeting of the Council held at the NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on Friday, 19th September, 1975 at 10.30 a.m.,” October 8, 1975, NATO, C-R(75)39. 59 Metternich to Bomsdorf, “Entspannungsprozeß und amerikanisch-sowjetische Beziehungen,” October 6, 1975, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (PA-AA), ZA 112.767. 60 Streator to Luns, October 10, 1975, AD, 91QO/744, “Rélations avec l’URSS et Sattelites” folder.

61 Malcolm W. Browne, “Brezhnev Asserts ‘Slander’ in West Poisons Détente,” December 10, 1975, The New York Times. 76

Negative press coverage, the French foreign ministry concluded, played a significant role in the overall souring of relations. US-Soviet tensions, however, extended far beyond such atmospherics. Solzhenitsyn’s presence in the United States and the Longshoremen’s union’s refusal to load wheat shipments bound for the Soviet Union were also major irritants. Negotiations for SALT II limped along. Brezhnev’s prospective visit to the

United States, intended to coincide with a final agreement in the talks, was deferred in

October 1975—for the third time.62

Observers across the Alliance followed the setbacks in US-Soviet relations with great interest and more than a little concern. Détente between the superpowers, as one official in the Auswärtiges Amt put it, seemed a “limited compromise.”63 In Paris, assessment after assessment pointed to the problems brewing in US-Soviet relations.

None of these issues, they concluded, would lead to a fundamental change in either superpower’s approach. Current shifts in US-Soviet relations were “zigzags,” as

Gromyko might have called them, not a wholesale rejection of détente.64 British analysts came to similar conclusions. Tallying May Day slogans in the spring of 1976, they reported a reduced number of references to détente and to peaceful coexistence in the

62 “Trends in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” November 24, 1975, NATO, C-M(75)66; Robert Kleiman, “Crisis in Détente,” October 14, 1975, The New York Times. 63 Metternich to Bomsdorf, “Entspannungsprozeß und amerikanisch-sowjetische Beziehungen,” October 6, 1975, PA-AA, ZA.112.767.

64 MAÉ briefing paper, “Rapports soviéto-américains,” September 3, 1975, AD, 91QO/744, “Rélations avec l’URSS et Sattelites” folder. 77

Kremlin’s official propaganda. Nevertheless, British policy-makers maintained that peaceful coexistence had merely been downgraded, “it [had] not been abandoned.”65

Such setbacks were not confined to superpower relations. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s October visit to Moscow, for example, caused a commotion after Brezhnev cancelled one of their scheduled meetings. Some assumed that the ailing Brezhnev’s poor health was to blame, but others insisted that the real culprit was a spat between the two leaders over the definition of détente.66

Events in Angola dealt yet another blow. On the surface, it seemed an unlikely flashpoint for East-West relations. After the Carnation Revolution in April 1974, the new government in Lisbon decided to divest its African empire. Portugal withdrew from its colonies, including Angola, bringing about an end to nearly five hundred years of colonial rule. Three different groups vied for control of the soon-to-be independent state and what began as a local struggle morphed into an international conflict with Cold War dimensions. Soviet financial assistance went to the Marxist Movimento Popular de

Libertação de Angola, as did aid from Cuba and Mozambique. Through the CIA, the

United States funneled aid to the center-right Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola and União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola.

65 Mallaby to Bone, “May Day Slogans 1976,” April 21, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 28/2823.

66 Charles Hargrove, “Giscard visit defined limits of détente,” October 19, 1975, The Times; Richard Davy, “Speculation stirred on Brezhnev future,” October 17, 1975, The Times; “Speculation on health of Brezhnev: Détente problems forced cancellation of Soviet talks, Giscard say,” October 17, 1975, The Globe and Mail. 78

Soviet and Cuban involvement in Angola caused considerable alarm in

Washington. The Ford administration insisted that the current situation in Angola could not be separated from détente, a fact underscored in speech after speech. Moscow’s sizable financial assistance to Angola, Ford cautioned in December, for example, “doesn’t help the continuation of détente.”67 Though seemingly unimportant to NATO’s strategic interests, events in Angola conjured up unpleasant memories of Soviet actions in the late

1940s. The Soviet Union, observers in London and Washington concluded, would chip away at the West’s influence in countries one by one. Salami tactics would be used to undermine the Western position, this time in far-away Africa. It was a painful reminder that the Soviet Union was now a global superpower.

Angola became synonymous with détente’s pitfalls for many in the West. What was the point in improving relations with the Soviet Union if it did not translate into any meaningful restraint on Moscow’s part? Margaret Thatcher, the leader of Britain’s

Conservative Party, saw Angola as prime evidence that the West now faced a Soviet

Union bent on world dominance.68 Her outspoken anti-détente speeches in early 1976 earned her the moniker “the Iron Lady,” courtesy of the Soviet Army’s official publication, Krasnaya Zvezda.69 Recent developments in East-West relations, planners at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office concluded, had done nothing but embolden

67 Ford news conference, December 20, 1975, PPP: GF, 1975, vol. 2, 1986-7. 68 Thatcher remarks, Kensington Town Hall, January 19, 1976, Margaret Thatcher Foundation Archive (MTFA), http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102939.

69 It was a nickname Thatcher embraced wholeheartedly: Thatcher remarks, “Speech to Finchley Conservatives,” January 31, 1976, MTFA, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102947. 79

détente’s critics. Soviet statements about the ongoing ideological struggle between capitalism and communism, the lack of meaningful progress in East-West relations since the Helsinki Summit, and the Soviet and Cuban intervention in Angola all raised serious doubts about détente’s future.70

Opponents of détente could be found throughout the Alliance. Thatcher’s

Conservatives denounced the policy, and the Christian Democrats made their objections the centerpiece of their 1976 bid to unseat Schmidt’s coalition government. Schmidt, they charged, was naive and gullible; and Bonn had “been taken for a ride by the East on détente” like the rest of the transatlantic allies.71 Nowhere was the damage greater than in the United States, where “the stench of the spirit of Yalta” lingered.72 Reports surfaced that “Kissinger’s Kissinger” Helmut Sonnenfeldt had called for an “organic” relationship between the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states.73 The Ford White House seemed far too eager to conclude deals with Moscow, no matter the price.

The 1976 presidential election offered a forum in which to debate détente’s merits. Ford’s policy came under fire from both sides of the aisle. His main challenger for the Republican nomination, Ronald Reagan, credited the policy with only one

70 Draft notes, “Future of Détente,” April 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 28/2823. 71 Petrie to Goodall, “The FRG and the Détente Debate,” March 12, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 28/2823. 72 Sebilleau to MAÉ, ““Doctrine Sonnenfeldt”,” May 10, 1976, AD, 91QO/920, “Rélations avec l’URSS et Sattelites” folder.

73 Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “A Soviet-East Europe ‘Organic Union’,” March 22, 1976, Washington Post; Leo P. Ribuffo, “Is Poland a Soviet Satellite? Gerald Ford, the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine, and the Election of 1976,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 14, No. 3 (July 1990): 392. 80

achievement: securing “the right to sell Pepsi Cola in Siberia.”74 As far as Reagan was concerned, détente was yet another sign of the United States’ diminished role in the world. Henry Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination building first and foremost on his national profile as a critic of détente. Ford’s version of the policy, he charged, was based on “a series of unequal bargains and unilateral American concessions.”75 Jimmy

Carter, the former governor of Georgia who ultimately became the Democratic nominee, invoked détente as a prime illustration of the Nixon and Ford administrations’ failings.

Even the campaign of the segregationist Democrat George Wallace, effectively a single- issue candidate, lamented the decline of Washington’s position relative to the Soviet

Union.76 Ford responded to the mounting criticism, opting to abandon the phrase entirely in favor of the equally nebulous slogan “peace through strength.” It was too little, too late. Détente was already intimately associated with decline and weakness in the minds of many Americans, reinforcing a sense of weakness already present in the wake of the

Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.77

At the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial meeting in May 1976, these heated debates demanded attention. Even the preparations for the meeting reflected serious

74 Ford news conference, February 13, 1976, PPP: GF, 1976-1977, vol. 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1979), 267-8. 75 Jackson remarks, New England Society of Newspaper Editors, November 7, 1975, GFPL, Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 24, “Democratic Presidential Candidates (2)” folder. 76 Wallace campaign appeal, undated [1975], GFPL, Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 24, “Democratic Presidential Candidates (1)” folder.

77 Jeremi Suri, “Détente and Its Discontents,” in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, ed. Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 227-45; Julian E. Zelizer, “Détente and Domestic Politics,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 33, No. 4 (September 2009): 653-70. 81

concerns about the vocal public opposition to détente seen throughout the West.

Preliminary drafts of the final communiqué made no mention of the term. British officials appreciated the reasons for Washington’s reluctance, but expressed concerns about the broader ramifications of such an omission. “The Russians would make a propaganda play” if the final communiqué did not explicitly refer to détente.78 Anti-détente rhetoric, particularly from Thatcher’s opposition, contributed to the Foreign and Commonwealth

Office’s desire to see the policy publicly affirmed. But in Oslo, the assembled foreign ministers were all on the same page: there could be no substitute for the Harmel Report’s double philosophy.79 Canadian foreign minister Allan MacEachen insisted that the allies must resist the temptation to abandon the term détente, however appealing it might be to do away with it.80 Kissinger highlighted the need to better cultivate public opinion throughout the West, no doubt a reaction to the wave of criticism battering the Ford administration. Their publics needed to understand the significance of the double philosophy—and the interplay between the two prongs—as part of NATO’s efforts to stabilize relations with the East.81

78 Hunter to Holmer, “NATO Ministerial Meeting, Oslo: Communique,” May 5, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1360. 79 Tiné to MAÉ, “Session Ministerielle d’Oslo – Seance Restreinte (V) Rélations Est-Ouest. Intervention de M. Sauvagnargues,” undated [May 1975], AD, 1929INVA/3699, “Rélations avec les U.S.A. “La détente”” folder. 80 “Restricted Session 20 May: East/West Relations (Document No. 4),” undated [May 1975], TNA-UK, FCO 46/1361.

81 Koening to MAÉ, “Conseil de l’ OTAN – Session Ministerielle d’Oslo (1) Seance Restreinte. Relations Est-Ouest-Declaration de M. Kissinger,” May 20, 1976, AD, 91QO/920, “Rélations avec l’URSS et Sattelites” folder. 82

As 1976 came to a close, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Planning Staff took stock of détente. Motivated primarily by the “emotions” stirred up by Angola, the exercise highlighted the myriad definitions of détente present in the Alliance. Washington saw détente as a way to manage the rise in Soviet power in the short term while possibly laying the foundations to overcome the barriers between East and West in the long term.

Western Europeans shared these objectives, although they tended to place a greater emphasis on developing trade relations across the Iron Curtain. British assessments also identified distinct French and German interests in the process. For Paris, détente afforded an opportunity to “assert an independent personality” in international affairs, while détente mattered deeply to Bonn as a means of demonstrating to the public its active commitment to German reunification. Britain’s role, the Planning Staff concluded, was far less involved. London should accordingly “play a responsible role in the formulation of overall Western policy.” The term itself had “been much overworked and misused.”

Basket III of the Helsinki Final Act illustrated this conundrum perfectly: it played a central role in shaping public perceptions of détente in the West, but viewed from

Moscow, it was a clear source of friction in East-West relations.82

“A more sober view of détente” had thus emerged by the end of 1976.83 Greater and more widespread pessimism about what might be achieved in East-West relations did not mean that the allies intended to jettison the double philosophy. Even as the Ford

82 Planning Staff paper, “Détente and the Future Management of East/West Relations,” December 15, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1964.

83 “Trends in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” November 3, 1976, NATO, C-M(76)64. 83

White House eschewed the term détente, Kissinger advocated for its continued usage within NATO circles. It remained the correct policy. NATO “could not afford to appear to our public opinion as not having made every effort to preserve peace.” If the Western allies failed to so, Kissinger concluded that they risked repeating “the peace movements of the 1960s in protest against the policies of governments which appeared ‘bellicose.’”84

His warnings were prescient: by the early 1980s, NATO faced widespread protests decrying the Alliance’s plans to modernize its nuclear forces in Europe. In the mid-1970s, the Western allies looked to avoid such a fate by demonstrating—visibly and often—that they were doing their utmost to improve relations with the Soviet Union.85

Meeting the Soviet Challenge

Pessimistic outlooks dominated allied policy-making circles by the middle of the decade.

Across the West, officials now referred to a new phase in international relations marked by strategic parity between the superpowers and a Soviet Union now capable of projecting its power globally.86 Warsaw Pact capabilities had increased dramatically, improving in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Moscow’s tone might have become

84 UKDELNATO to FCO, “North Atlantic Council: 9 December: Restricted Session (Telno. 442),” December 10, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1364. 85 Planning Staff paper, “Détente and the Future Management of East/West Relations,” December 15, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1964; Killick to Crosland, “Annual Review,” January 4, 1977, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1475.

86 “I. Introduction: The Soviet-American Competition,” Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (JCPL), Remote Access Capture (RAC), NLC-12-33-6-5-1; Luns report, “Annual Political Appraisal,” May 20, 1975, NATO, C-M(75)32; Haig remarks, Economic Club of Detroit, February 3, 1977, Library of Congress (LOC), Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 71, “Project Memo File 1978 July - September” folder. 84

softer, but the Soviet Union was “carrying an even bigger stick.”87 The relative balance between East and West had changed—and not in NATO’s favor. Defense forecasts predicted that these trends would only get worse in the years to come.88 But what could the Western allies do to reverse the problem?

Modernizing NATO’s theater nuclear capabilities had already been under consideration since the late 1960s. The Alliance’s existing posture was in clear need of improvement; as one British observer memorably described it in 1975, the situation was nothing more than “an accidental hangover from the 1950s.”89 Now that the Soviet Union had reached strategic parity with the United States, medium-range or theater nuclear forces (TNF) took on greater importance in providing for Western European security. At its core, it was a question of Washington’s commitment to the defense of the continent. In

Washington, a series of interagency studies reviewed the US nuclear forces assigned to

NATO in Western Europe in the mid-1970s. Secretaries of Defense James Schlesinger and Donald Rumsfeld set in motion plans to upgrade the United States’ existing nuclear arsenal. Thousands of missiles would be retired, replaced with new, more technologically advanced weaponry. The task of navigating the constellation of military, political, and psychological issues in order to “modernize” these weapons, however, fell to Ford’s successor.

87 Luns remarks, “Secretary General’s Opening Press Statement,” December 3, 1973, NATO, IS-PDD-PDD PR-SEC GEN 06/12/1973. 88 Sykes to Killick, “Medium and Long-Term Problems for NATO,” December 3, 1976, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1366.

89 “Improving the Effectiveness of NATO’s Theatre Nuclear Forces: UK Comment on the US paper BMC 10 of 15 December 1975,” n.d., TNA-UK, FCO 46/1373. 85

Jimmy Carter came to office convinced of the need to improve transatlantic relations. On the campaign trail, he had accused Ford of having abandoned Washington’s traditional friends and allies. “The Nixon-Ford administration,” as the campaign dubbed its Republican opponent, had critically mismanaged transatlantic relations.90 Carter and his foreign policy team would need to reverse “the dangerous and pervasive sense” that the United States was no longer willing nor able to lead.91 The administration’s initial review of European affairs thus placed considerable emphasis on reinvigorating transatlantic relations.92

Part of the Carter White House’s proposed solution dealt with the ever-thorny issue: consultation. The new president promised greater consultation and deeper exchanges, all with an eye to developing a more two-way street. Just hours after Carter was sworn into office, the administration dispatched Vice President Walter Mondale to attend a session of the North Atlantic Council. Mondale’s visit included the promise that the Carter administration would spend more on European defense—provided the

Europeans were prepared to spend more as well. Carter’s vision was more sweeping than the perennial promise of consultations, both better and more numerous than his

90 North Atlantic Study Group memorandum, “U.S. Atlantic Policy,” JCPL, Records of the 1976 Campaign Committee to Elect Jimmy Carter, Noel Sterrett Foreign Clippings Files, Box 132, “North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)” folder; Russia and Détente Study Group memorandum, “U.S.-Soviet Relations,” JCPL, Records of the 1976 Campaign Committee to Elect Jimmy Carter, Noel Sterrett Foreign Clippings Files, Box 135, “Détente and US Policy Toward Russia” folder. 91 “North Atlantic Study Group,” JCPL, Records of the 1976 Campaign Committee to Elect Jimmy Carter, Noel Sterrett Foreign Clippings Files, Box 132, “North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)” folder.

92 Brzezinski to Mondale, Vance, and Brown, “Comprehensive Review of European Issues,” February 1, 1977, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 27, “Presidential Review Memorandum/ NSC-9 [1]” folder. 86

predecessors. He envisioned a more equitable partnership better attuned to the current distribution of power within NATO. Central to this redistribution was the Federal

Republic of Germany. Bonn’s economic strength was considerable: its share of global trade was on par with Washington’s, and West German financial policies had kept the government largely insulated from the pressures to reduce defense spending that plagued many of the other allies.

As part of the administration’s review of European issues, three main areas were identified as challenges confronting the Alliance: NATO’s common defense, its role in

East-West issues, and force improvements. Economic realities made it harder to allocate money to defense budgets, a problem felt acutely as James Callaghan’s government in

London struggled to find sufficient funds to keep the armed forces solvent. Political reservations also limited governments’ desire to invest in defense. Among the smaller transatlantic partners, the doubts seemed fundamental. An increase in their defenses would, after all, do little to diminish the Soviet threat. But the Soviet Union’s capabilities had also improved, as had the Warsaw Pact’s posture as a whole. NATO needed to invest in a wide range of improvements, covering conventional forces, nuclear posture, and interoperability amongst the allies. So far as NATO was concerned, the overall thrust of the review was the need to improve the West’s defenses and maintain sufficient support among allied governments and their publics.93

93 Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-9, “Comprehensive Review of European Issues,” March 1, 1977, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 27, “Presidential Review Memorandum/ NSC-9 [1]” folder. 87

To meet these challenges, the Carter administration’s review called for an integrated response. Each of the issues could be addressed separately, but tackling them as a whole would, the White House hoped, create a coherent architecture and inject new vigor into the Alliance.94 Beyond such lofty rhetoric, it would be another of NATO’s classic bureaucratic exercises. Administration briefings envisioned a series of interlocking studies, similar in scope and significance to earlier exercises like the Wise

Men’s Report of 1956 or the Harmel Report.95

Carter’s package of three studies—a review of East-West relations, defense, and internal consultative mechanisms—was the centerpiece of another NATO summit, the

Alliance’s third such gathering in four years. This time held in London, the meeting afforded the Carter administration a chance to put its money where its mouth was. Carter could affirm personally his commitment to NATO, as well as his desire for greater consultation between the allies. The proposed studies would be a tangible reflection of the new administration’s approach. On the surface, Carter’s performance in London hit all the right notes. He gave a “brisk and impressive speech” before the meeting, offering the requisite assurances that the Atlantic Alliance remained the cornerstone of US foreign

94 Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-9, “Comprehensive Review of European Issues,” March 1, 1977, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 27, “Presidential Review Memorandum/ NSC-9 [1]” folder.

95 Vance, Brown to Carter, “May NATO Ministerial Meetings,” undated [1977], JCPL, RAC, NLC-23-19-6-3-7; Hunter to Brzezinski, “Planning for the NATO Ministerial Meeting,” February 24, 1977, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 27, “Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-9 [1]” folder. 88

policy.96 Carter’s performance in London aside, his five-month-long presidency had already left many of the allies reeling.

Chief among their concerns was Carter’s approach to human rights. His inaugural address called for “a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation” and insisted that “our commitment to human rights must be absolute.”97 He penned an open letter to Andrei Sakharov and met former Soviet political prisoner Vladimir Bukovsky at the White House. Carter did so convinced that his stance on human rights could be segregated from other aspects of US-Soviet relations. When pressed on the matter by reporters, Carter insisted that human rights issues could “legitimately be severed from our inclination to work with the Soviet Union.” Subjects of mutual interest between Moscow and Washington, such as limiting nuclear weapons and reducing conventional forces, remained prime areas for US-Soviet cooperation in the president’s view, regardless of his sharp comments on the Soviet Union’s human rights record.98

Carter’s “openly confrontational line” concerned Washington’s allies. The president’s outspoken approach, they rightly feared, would negatively impact East-West relations. Before James Callaghan visited Washington in March 1977, his briefings highlighted the need to convince Carter to rethink his current strategy on human rights.

96 FCO to UKDELNATO, “NATO Ministerial Meeting: Morning of 10 May,” May 10, 1977, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1482. 97 Carter inaugural address, January 20, 1977, PPP: Jimmy Carter (JC) 1977, vol. 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), 2.

98 Carter news conference, February 8, 1977, PPP: JC 1977, vol. 1, 100. Carter later admitted that he failed to appreciate the extent to which his human rights policy would frustrate the Kremlin: Jimmy Carter interview, November 29, 1982, Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral- histories/jimmy-carter-oral-history-president-united-states. 89

“A more balanced approach” to these questions would be of greater benefit to dissidents in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—and to the détente process as a whole.99 Allied governments should speak up for human rights, of course—“our moral tradition and public opinion require it,” one British diplomat in Moscow concluded—but Carter’s current tactics threatened to spill over into other aspects of East-West relations.100

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing insisted that Carter had jeopardized détente. In an interview with Newsweek, the French president pointed to a fundamental incompatibility between Brezhnev’s view of détente and Carter’s. The Soviet General Secretary was not, in Giscard’s estimation, interested in “redefining détente,” but Carter’s policies threatened US-Soviet relations going forward. “Unless the superpowers can re-establish a common language,” Giscard warned, “there is little doubt in my mind that we will soon be living in a quite different climate from the one we have known in recent years.”101

Ample evidence could be found to support Giscard’s claims. Brezhnev publicly attacked

Carter’s support for Soviet dissidents as an unacceptable form of interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union.102 Soviet pundits labelled Carter “an enemy of détente.”103

99 FCO briefing paper, “Visit of the Prime Minister to Washington, 9-11 March 1977: East-West Relations - Political,” March 2, 1977, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1477. 100 Smith to FCO, “Détente, Human Rights, Belgrade, and SALT,” February 25, 1977, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1477. 101 Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Giscard speaks out,” July 25, 1977, Newsweek. 102 North Atlantic Assembly, The Bulletin, Issue No. 3 (May 1977): 4.

103 Carter news conference, June 13, 1977, PPP: JC 1977, Book 1, 1106. 90

Soviet frustration about this new emphasis on human rights reflected genuine fears about the forces unleashed by the Helsinki Final Act. Helsinki’s follow-on mechanisms called for the CSCE to reconvene to assess implementation of the accords thus far. Provisions for these review conferences spurred the creation of formal and information institutions on both sides of the Iron Curtain, collecting data and recording violations of the agreement. Throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, monitoring groups like the Moscow Helsinki Group formed to track human rights violations and expose state abuses.104 Citizens in the East seized on the Helsinki Final Act to criticize their governments, such as the signatories of Charter 77. Government crackdowns, existing restrictions on political activities, and outright harassment could not stop the circulation of ideas. Human rights issues were also questions of prestige and image. Revelations about the widespread state abuse of psychiatric facilities, such as in the publication of Russia’s Political Hospitals, were humiliating and damaging to

Moscow’s international image.105 Carter’s aggressive approach fanned the flames and, in so doing, emboldened détente’s opponents within the Kremlin.

Within NATO, the question of human rights was a delicate balancing act. Few shared Carter’s enthusiasm to stake out a more moral foreign policy. Giscard, for

104 Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War, 53-80; Sarah B. Snyder, “The Rise of the Helsinki Network: “A Sort of Lifeline” for Eastern Europe,” in Perforating the Iron Curtain: European Détente, Transatlantic Relations, and the Cold War, 1965-1985, ed. Poul Villaume and Odd Arne Westad (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010), 179; 182-4.

105 Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals: The Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union (London: Gollancz, 1977); North Atlantic Assembly, The Bulletin, Issue No. 5 (October 1977): 19; German delegation paper, “Expert Working Group on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (German Contribution – Part II),” November 4, 1977, AD, 1929INVA/3888, “France experts OTAN pays de l’Est 15-18 novembre 1977” folder. 91

example, refused to meet with Soviet dissidents. After being denied an audience by the government, Andrei Amalrik conducted a one-man protest outside the Élysée Palace with a placard calling on the French president to “implement the Helsinki Accords.” Amalrik’s later press release accused Giscard’s government of helping the Kremlin deflect Carter’s focus on human rights.106 Citizens throughout the West increasingly expected their governments to recognize and call out by name human rights violations taking place east of the Iron Curtain. But this needed to be done without crossing over into invective. “All of us would be the losers,” Vance remarked to his colleagues at the June 1977 ministerial session in London, if the CSCE’s review conference in Belgrade amounted to little more than polemics.107

Carter’s human rights agenda made headlines, but it was far from the only area of concern to Washington’s allies. His administration’s initial handling of arms control questions led many to conclude that his was a naïve and inexperienced executive. Before entering the White House, Carter had outlined a vision of two stages of negotiations with the Soviet Union. He appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressing his dismay that Ford had not pushed for an agreement on SALT II that built on the Vladivostok Accord signed with Brezhnev in November 1974. That agreement had nailed down restrictions on both superpowers’ nuclear arsenals, calling for limits on the

106 North Atlantic Assembly, The Bulletin, Issue No. 3 (May 1977): 23.

107 Verbatim record, NAC ministerial meeting, Lancaster House, London, May 11, 1977, NATO, C- VR(77)22 III. 92

deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

Once in the White House, Carter told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he intended to pursue a further agreement on arms reductions with the Soviet Union once SALT II had been ratified. But in March 1977, Vance traveled to Moscow with an ambitious new proposal, overhauling the administration’s approach to the ongoing

SALT II negotiations. It called for deep reductions, such as bringing the overall level of strategic systems down from 2,400 (the limit accepted at Vladivostok in 1974) to 1,800 or

2,000. The deep cuts proposal, as it became known, frustrated and angered the Soviets. It seemed nothing more than an attempt to rip up the hard-won progress made in earlier negotiations.108

Carter’s approach, be it his emphasis on human rights or his calls for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, placed the Soviet Union on the defensive. But his handling of these issues rattled allied confidence, indicative of larger unresolved questions about how the West’s relations with Moscow should be handled. Was Carter’s outspoken diplomacy valuable insofar as it undercut Soviet propaganda and drew attention to the shortcomings of the Soviet system? Or did Carter’s willingness to speak openly about these problems jeopardize East-West cooperation and fan anti-Soviet sentiments amongst Western publics?

108 For a more detailed treatment, see Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, 883-94. 93

Conclusion

By late 1977, pundits argued that there was little left of the earlier détente between the superpowers. What remained in US-Soviet relations was, on the one hand, “a batch of yellowing declarations of good intentions” and the obviously flagging negotiations on

SALT II.109 None of the major disarmament talks taking place between East and West had achieved tangible results. MBFR limped along with no end in sight. The Conference of the Committee on Disarmament had not reached an agreement since its 1972 convention on biological weapons. But on the other hand, there was yet further evidence of Soviet adventurism around the globe. Soviet and Eastern European weapons shipments poured into Ethiopia, and some 18,000 Cuban troops were also stationed in the country by early

1978. If breakthroughs could not be reached with the Soviet Union, some in the Alliance worried that it would only contribute to even more pessimistic assessments of Moscow’s foreign policy and, in so doing, harm détente’s prospects for the future even further.110

West-West relations fared little better. Before the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial in December 1977, one Carter aide remarked that there was “no crisis” in

Washington’s relations with its Western European partners, but there was “a feeling of malaise and drift.”111 Taken together, the problems in transatlantic relations boiled down to one issue. Could Carter and his advisors lead the Alliance? If not, who would?

109 Peter Osnos, “Détente: A victim of mutual suspicion,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 33, No. 9 (November 1977): 17. 110 APAG report, “The Future of East-West Relations, Including the Possible Effects of Extra-European Developments on the Security of the Alliance,” July 19, 1977, NATO, C-M(77)48.

111 John M. Gosko, “Vance in Belgium Seeking to Ease Strains With NATO Allies,” December 8, 1977, Washington Post. Chapter 3: It Takes Two

“There was no alternative to NATO’s strategy of security and détente.”1 — Helmut Schmidt, 1977

“We will ask for and listen to the advice of our allies. And we will give our views in return, candidly and as friends.”2 — Jimmy Carter, 1977

If Carter was unwilling or unable to lead, there was always Helmut Schmidt. Certainly, the Chancellor was confident that he was up to the task. Schmidt was ambitious, assertive, and outspoken, earning him the nickname Schmidt-Schnauze—“Schmidt the lip.” He was well-versed on the economic and security issues of the day, having served as defense minister, minister for economics, and finance minister before succeeding Brandt as Chancellor in 1974. Schmidt’s experience and his abundance of confidence often put him at odds with Carter, who was intelligent, detail-oriented, and possessed with a “gritty self-confidence.”3 Neither Carter nor Schmidt suffered fools lightly; the problem was that both men increasingly believed the other to be a fool.

1 FCO to UKDEL NATO, “NATO Ministerial Meeting: 10 May,” May 11, 1977, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1482. 2 Carter remarks, NATO summit meeting, London, May 10, 1977, PPP: JC 1977, vol. 1, 849.

3 Washington to FCO, “Presidential Election,” November 1, 1976, TNA-UK, PREM 16/1155. 94 95

Carter and Schmidt’s contentious relationship is well known.4 Both leader’s memoirs make no effort to hide their dislike for one another.5 Schmidt had all but endorsed Ford during the 1976 presidential campaign, underscoring his “great personal feeling” for the Republican in one Newsweek interview. Of Carter, he offered nothing more than a flat assertion that he would say nothing about the Democratic candidate,

“neither positive nor negative.”6 After Carter entered the White House, Schmidt griped often and loudly about his leadership style. He accused the entire Carter team (with the notable exception of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown) of being motivated by a desire

“to be popular.”7 Schmidt’s self-confidence unsurprisingly came across as arrogance in the eyes of many in the Carter administration. Schmidt “thought he should rule the world,” one NSC staffer remarked. He loved to demonstrate his own intelligence, a habit for which Carter had little patience.8 There is no shortage of sharp barbs or humorous anecdotes from Carter and Schmidt’s relationship: when Carter lost the presidential

4 Kristina Spohr, “NATO’s Nuclear Politics and the Schmidt-Carter Rift,” in The Euromissile Crisis and the End of the Cold War, ed. Leopoldo Nuti et al. (Stanford and Washington: Stanford University Press/ Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2015), 139-57; Klaus Wiegrefe, Das Zerwürfnis: Helmut Schmidt, Jimmy Carter und die Krise der deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 2005). 5 Carter introduces Schmidt in his diaries as the “strong-willed and competent Chancellor of Germany who seemed to believe he knew more about each of the other G-7 nations than did their leader.” Schmidt referred to Carter as “idealistic and fickle.” Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010), 69; Helmut Schmidt, Menschen und Mächte (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1987), 224. 6 Anthony Collings, “Schmidt: ‘I Like Ford’,” October 18, 1976, Newsweek. 7 “Note of a Discussion Between the Defence Secretary and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany at 11 PM on Thursday 5th January 1978 in the Oberoi Hotel, Aswan, Egypt,” n.d. [January 1978] TNA-UK, PREM 16/1781.

8 Robert E. Hunter oral history, August 10, 2004, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Hunter,%20Robert%20E.toc.pdf, 64. 96

election in 1980, one of the few blessings was that he would finally be rid of Schmidt.

“I’m glad to deliver Schmidt […] to Reagan,” he wrote in his diary.9

Carter and Schmidt’s acrimonious personal relations were far from the whole story. The two leaders were instrumental in hammering out an agreement to modernize

NATO’s theater nuclear forces. December 1979’s Dual-Track Decision called for a two- pronged approach: deploy and negotiate. Washington would deploy new Pershing IIs and ground-launched cruise missiles to Western Europe in 1983. And, at the same time, the

United States would pursue negotiations with the Soviet Union on reductions to these same theater systems. Schmidt has been credited with sounding the alarm on the so-called

Euromissiles, leading to the Dual-Track Decision.10 Carter’s role, by comparison, has received little attention.11 The Dual-Track Decision was a product of both men and their thinking, including their concerns about the state of US-German relations. Schmidt’s familiarity with the issues, his self-assured style, and his concern about Carter’s leadership encouraged him to speak out about the possible decoupling of Western

Europe’s defense from the US nuclear umbrella. Carter, for his part, took the Chancellor’s concerns seriously and appreciated the need to reassure the Europeans of Washington’s commitment to the continent.

9 Carter, White House Diary, 486. 10 Susanne Peters, The Germans and the INF Missiles: Getting Their Way in NATO’s Strategy of Flexible Response (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1990), 1-5; Renouard and Vigil, “The Quest for Leadership in a Time of Peace,” in The Strained Alliance, 311; Kristina Spohr Readman, “Conflict and Cooperation in Intra-Alliance Nuclear Politics: Western Europe, the United States and the Genesis of NATO’s Dual-Track Decision, 1977-1979,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2011): 42-3.

11 A notable exception is Stephanie Freeman, “The Making of an Accidental Crisis: The United States and the NATO Dual-Track Decision of 1979,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2014): 331-55. 97

Killer Warheads

On June 6, 1977, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus broke news of a “neutron killer warhead” found in the Energy and Research Development Agency’s budget for 1978.

This enhanced radiation warhead (ERW), the Pincus article opened, would be the first weapon “designed to kill people through the release of neutrons rather than to destroy military installations through heat and blast.”12 Journalists on both sides of the Atlantic picked up the story, churning out pieces about the dangers of this so-called ‘neutron bomb.’ Articles described a new type of terrible technology, designed to kill people while leaving buildings intact.13 Critics denounced it as a “super-capitalist weapon” concerned more with protecting property than saving human lives.14

Concerned citizens throughout the West mobilized against the possible deployment of the neutron bomb. Protestors marched outside the White House, calling on

President Carter to say no to the neutron bomb.15 The Campaign for Nuclear

Disarmament (CND), the British anti-nuclear group founded in 1957, referred to it as the

“weapon par excellence” for those interested in annexing another country. “Hitler and

Goebbels would have smacked their lips,” CND’s widely-distributed pamphlet The

Neutron Bomb insisted, if such a weapon had existed during the Second World War.16

12 Walter Pincus, “Neutron Killer Warhead Buried in ERDA Budget,” June 6, 1977, Washington Post. ERW was sometimes also referred to as the enhanced radiation/reduced blast warhead or ER/RBW. 13 See, for example, Jon Franklin, “All about the neutron: What it does, how it kills,” July 7, 1977, The Sun; Ernest Volkman, “The Neutron Bomb: The Buildings Stand…The Soldiers Die,” July 8, 1977, Newsday. 14 Herbert Scoville Jr., “A New Weapon to Think (and Worry) About,” July 12, 1977, New York Times. 15 “Neutron bomb protest,” July 21, 1977, The Sun.

16 Eric Burhop, The Neutron Bomb (London: Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 1977), 9-10; 12. 98

Concerns about the nuclear bomb were particularly acute in the Federal Republic.

German anxieties stemmed from geographic realities: their territory would be the most logical site for the deployment—and use—of the neutron warhead. The neutron bomb accordingly raised difficult questions about German security on a divided continent.

Should a conflict break out between the two superpowers, those most likely to die on either side of the Iron Curtain were German.

The architect of Ostpolitik Egon Bahr, now the SPD’s executive secretary, denounced the neutron bomb as an immoral weapon. Bahr, in a piece published in the party’s weekly circular Vorwärts, wondered “is mankind going crazy?”17 Bahr’s comments ignited an emotional public debate over the weapon. One article in Der

Spiegel, for instance, opened quoting the recollections of atomic bomb survivors from

John Hersey’s Hiroshima.18 Schmidt faced an increasingly contentious landscape at home. With prominent members of his own party openly opposed to the neutron bomb,

Schmidt tried to remain on the sidelines.19 In late July, after returning from a visit to

Washington, Schmidt insisted that it was too early for his government to take an official position. Defense minister Georg Leber denied reports that the Federal Republic was keen to acquire the neutron bomb.

17 Michael Getler, “Bonn Party Aid Calls U.S. Bomb A ‘Perversion’,” July 18, 1977, Washington Post. 18 “Lichtblitz über der Elbe,” July 18, 1977, Der Spiegel.

19 Sherri L. Wasserman, The Neutron Bomb Controversy: A Study in Alliance Politics (New York: Praeger, 1983), 69-70. 99

In July, Carter had announced his support for the production of the neutron warhead, though he deferred a final decision on the weapon’s deployment. The president wanted any deployment decision to be taken in conjunction with Washington’s NATO allies. Previously, the United States would have made such a production decision on its own, followed later by a separate decision on deployment. But if his administration were to approve ERW’s production and deployment, as Carter informed Schmidt in late

November, the president insisted that Washington’s partners must first “express explicit support” for the weapons’ deployment in Europe.20 Privately, Schmidt proposed a scheme to defuse the situation. He recommended an arms control trade, linking deployment of the neutron bomb to a reduction in levels of Soviet tanks through the MBFR process.

In Washington, the Carter administration built on the basic premise of Schmidt’s proposal. His advisors debated the merits of such a trade, considering links to Soviet tanks and to the SS-20 intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Each had potential benefits.

Alexander Haig saw a link to MBFR as a means of circumventing problems in the

Western offer currently on the table in Vienna. NATO’s current, “less than enlightened” position gave up long-range theater nuclear forces relevant to the ongoing allied debates over the cruise missiles.21 Both Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and Deputy National

Security Adviser David Aaron favored a trade for the SS-20. By linking the neutron bomb

20 Carter to Schmidt, November 23, 1977, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense – Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder.

21 Haig, Brzezinski, and Treverton memorandum of conversation, September 27, 1977, JCPL, RAC, NLC-23-22-3-6-3. 100

to these Soviet ballistic missiles, they could create an “awkward dilemma” for Moscow.

If the Soviets rejected the link, it could help the allies to undercut Moscow’s efforts to sell Soviet foreign policy as the side championing disarmament and peace.22

Public presentation would matter for any of the proposed trades. If a link to the

SS-20 were to succeed, Aaron insisted that they would need “a catchier name” for the

Soviet intermediate-range missile. “We ought to unleash some of those people in DOD to give it a wretched sounding name,” he suggested in one memo.23 The neutron bomb reinvigorated anti-nuclear and peace activists. With the Vietnam War over, many activists turned (and returned) their attention to the dangers of the nuclear arms race, echoing the protests of the 1950s and 1960s. Citizens across the West expressed concern about the horrors of nuclear war and the insanity of the arms race between the superpowers. The weapon, in many ways, became a symbol of the “dangerous escalation of the nuclear arms race.”24 Already, at the Nuclear Planning Group’s October meeting in Bari, Belgian defense minister Paul Vanden Boeynants worried that an organized public campaign against the neutron bomb would only grow in the months to come.25

22 Brown to Carter, “Getting Something for the Neutron Bomb: ER for SS-20?,” November 8, 1977, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 27, “Meetings – SCC 41, 11/16/77” folder. 23 Aaron to Bartholomew, Hunter et al., January 12, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-133-215-3-15-6. 24 Committee to Ban the Neutron Bomb (Toronto) flyer, n.d. [1977?], William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library (MUL), Canadian Peace Congress fonds, Box 11, “Correspondence – Ban the Neutron Bomb” folder.

25 BNATO to External Affairs, “NPG–Enhanced Radiation Weapons(ERW)–Bari Ministerial,” October 18, 1977, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 22103, File 27-4-NATO-1-16, Part 29. 101

From the Warsaw Pact’s perspective, the ongoing public debates regarding the possible production and deployment of the neutron bomb presented an opportunity to undermine their NATO adversaries too good to pass up. By leveraging widespread public opposition to the neutron bomb, those east of the Iron Curtain hoped to deal the Western allies a major defeat. To that end, Warsaw Pact governments cultivated ties to activists and funneled money to peace groups throughout the West. Not all of the opposition to the neutron bomb was communist-inspired or -funded, but Moscow’s “violent and mounting campaign” alarmed the Western allies.26

Soviet rhetoric sought to exploit traditional sensitivities in transatlantic relations, such as the prospect that a limited nuclear war might be waged on the European continent. Brezhnev, for instance, dispatched letters to his Western European counterparts pointing to Washington’s “cold but illusory calculation”—the neutron bomb stationed in their midst would only be used to kill Europeans.27 Publicly, TASS ran statements accusing the Carter administration of trying to “justify action that can only bring the world closer to nuclear holocaust.”28 The World Peace Council, an international peace organization long seen as a Soviet front, dubbed the neutron bomb a “torture weapon.”29

Détente figured prominently in the campaigns against the neutron bomb, including the

26 “The Situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” April 4, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)25. 27 Corrigendum to C-M(78)4, February 3, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)4 COR1. 28 Saunders to Vance, “MBFR: Soviet Reaction to a Neutron-Bomb Proposal,” September 21, 1977, Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), Soviet Estimate collection.

29 Presidential Committee of the World Peace Council, “Resolutions and Documents,” September 9-12, 1977, MUL, Canadian Peace Congress fonds, Box 12, “World Peace Council – Circulars” folder. 102

Warsaw Pact’s. Pravda carried appeals from the Communist Parties of Europe and North

America to support the continuation of détente and stop the production of the neutron bomb.30

The longer the allies delayed a final decision, the more difficult the situation with

Western publics threatened to become. So long as NATO deferred the question, Leslie

Gelb, the Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, worried, it created “an impossible political and diplomatic position.” Above all, Gelb feared that the delay contributed to impressions that NATO’s strategic military decisions could be derailed by a Soviet propaganda campaign.31 The Carter administration pushed for a resolution prior to the upcoming summit in Washington that May.32

US officials recommended a three-part plan, the result of months of intensive consultations with both London and Bonn. The proposed solution was an elaborate scheme, building on the paired approach first floated by Schmidt in the fall. The United

States would take a decision to produce the neutron bomb. Alongside the production decision, they would extend an offer to stop the weapon’s deployment if the Soviet Union agreed to stop deploying the SS-20s. A corresponding statement would be released, affirming that the NATO allies agreed to accept the deployments should Moscow and

30 “Neutron Bomb Protests,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 29, No. 32 (September 1977), 14. 31 Vance to White House, “Consultations with Blech: Enhanced Radiation,” January 12, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-16-110-3-28-9.

32 Glitman to Vance, “Preparations for NAC Consultation on SALT,” March 2, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-16-23-5-20-2. 103

Washington not reach an agreement within two years.33 Clear pitfalls remained. Practical links between the neutron bomb and the SS-20 were tenuous at best. Assessments produced by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency concluded that the proposed link to the SS-20 was not a credible offer.34 Maynard Glitman, the Deputy Chief of

Washington’s mission at NATO, wondered if they were not “mixing battlefield oranges with strategic regional system apples in a way that can come back to haunt us?”35

Schmidt came around on the deployments, indicating that he would accept a link with the SS-20 if that were the final consensus at NATO.36 But the chancellor refused to accept the deployments alone: at least one other continental member would need to host the neutron bomb. Belgium and the Netherlands, the two most likely candidates for the role, faced an uphill battle to secure sufficient public support for the deployments.37 By

February, some 750,000 Dutch citizens had signed a petition against the weapon.38

33 Brown, Vance to Carter, “ERW and Alliance Consultations,” n.d. [1978], JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense – Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder. 34 Brown, Vance to Carter, “ERW and Alliance Consultations,” n.d. [1978], JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense – Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder. 35 Glitman to Vance, “Preparations for NAC Consultation on SALT,” March 2, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-16-23-5-20-2. 36 Vance, Brown to Carter, “ERW and Alliance Consultations,” n.d. [1978], JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense - Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder. 37 Ruud van Dijk, “Prelude to the Euromissile Crisis: The Neutron Bomb Affair, the Netherlands, and the ‘Defeat of the Strangeloves,’ 1977–1978,” Nuclear Proliferation International History Project Working Paper No. 8 (August 2015), 35-7.

38 “Driekwart miljoen handtekeningen!,” February 2, 1978, De Waarheid. 104

On March 8, the Dutch Parliament passed a resolution opposing the production of the neutron bomb. The Dutch vote illustrated how contentious the issue had become within the West. But the scenario concocted by NATO did not actually require explicit

Dutch support. Only the Federal Republic, the United Kingdom, and the United States needed to offer their unequivocal support, provided none of the other allies objected.39

The North Atlantic Council made plans to do a practice run of the final decision; everyone, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs George Vest later recalled, had their individual script ready, “just like a play.”40 The British even drafted a script for

Joseph Luns highlighting the allied commitment to arms control negotiations.41

With everything set, Carter pulled the plug. In the middle of March, the president asked his team to wait before taking any additional steps toward a final decision.42

NATO’s planned March 20 announcement was cancelled. Before the month was through,

Carter told advisors he intended to scrap NATO’s plans entirely, unless the Europeans proved more forthcoming than in the existing scenario. Deputy Secretary of State Warren

Christopher was dispatched to Bonn and London to explore the possibility of securing an even more explicit affirmation of willingness to deploy the weapons. If no progress could

39 Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 93-4. 40 George S. Vest oral history, July 6, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Vest,%20George%20S.toc.pdf, 59. 41 “UK Proposed Luns Summing Up Statement,” n.d. [1978], JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense – Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder.

42 Brzezinski to Carter, “Enhanced Radiation Warhead Implementation,” March 18, 1978, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense - Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder. 105

be made, Christopher was instructed to inform them of the president’s intention to reverse the Alliance’s existing, carefully constructed scheme. Christopher’s news left Schmidt stunned, but the chancellor held his ground. He could only support a deployment decision if two conditions were met: arms control negotiations needed to be pursued first and another continental European country would also need to agree to host the weapons.

On April 4, a front page story in the New York Times announced “Aides Report

Carter Bans Neutron Bomb; Some Seek Reversal.” The article, written by a former staffer of Henry Jackson’s, Richard Burt, accurately summed up the president’s hesitation and his efforts to secure a new commitment out of London and Bonn.43 Publicly, administration officials continued to insist that a final decision had not yet been made.

The next day, the German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (“Genschman,” as he was affectionately known to many Germans), always on the road for one meeting or another, arrived in Washington to discuss the matter. Schmidt, after Christopher’s bombshell, explicitly asked that no final decision on ERW be made public until after

Genscher had travelled to Washington. Burt’s article escalated the problem, making it near impossible to have a quiet resolution of the issue.

Even before the New York Times ran Burt’s story, Christopher’s briefing for the

Carter-Genscher meeting emphasized German anxiety that the Europeans would be cast as the ones “to ‘blame’ for our decision.” Unsurprisingly, given the charged political atmosphere facing Schmidt’s coalition government at home, both Schmidt and Genscher

43 Richard Burt, “Aides Report Carter Bans Neutron Bomb; Some Seek Reversal,” April 4, 1978, New York Times. 106

wanted to avoid a public discussion of their plans to support NATO’s triple-barreled

“production-negotiation-deployment scenario,” if Carter only planned to jettison it.

Genscher accordingly sought reassurances as to how the Carter administration intended to handle the announcement in public.44 The president announced his position on April 7, introducing a decision to defer rather than to cancel the weapon’s production. A final decision, the White House announcement promised, would be “influenced by the degree to which the Soviet Union shows restraint” in both its conventional and nuclear force deployments. “We are determined,” the president promised, “to do whatever is necessary to assure our collective security and the forward defense of Europe.”45

Carter’s deferral left Washington’s transatlantic partners stunned. The president had pulled the rug out from under them. After months of painstakingly assembling a package to deal with the neutron bomb, Carter abandoned it entirely. “Having gotten us all out on a limb,” as British permanent representative John Killick later described the affair, Carter had “sawed the branch off!”46 Both Helmut Schmidt and James Callaghan had made public statements in support of the neutron bomb, despite substantial opposition within their own political parties and throughout their electorates. Carter’s

44 Christopher to Carter, “Your Meeting with West German Foreign Minister Genscher Tuesday, April 4 at 2:45 p.m.,” n.d. [April 1978], JCPL, RAC, NLC-6-24-4-40-1. 45 Carter statement, “Enhanced Radiation Weapons,” April 7, 1978, PPP: JC 1978, vol. 1, 702.

46 “NATO: Annual Review for 1978,” n.d., TNA-UK, FCO 46/1959. In an interview nearly twenty-five years later, Killick disparagingly referred to the decision as one where Carter “had prayed all night and had decided not deploy the thing.” Sir John Killick oral history interview, February 14, 2002, British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/Killick.pdf, 34. 107

announcement raised questions about the president’s commitment to NATO and his ability to conduct a consistent foreign policy.

Carter’s decision seemed an abrupt about face. Within the administration, many had warned of such a reaction after Carter asked for NATO’s existing scheme to be put on ice. Any change in policy at this point would either be interpreted as “a sign of weakness” or of “American moralism running rampant over real security needs and concerns.”47

Sure enough, these warnings were spot on. At home and abroad, Carter’s deferral was seen as yet further evidence of a vacillating executive in Washington. NATO’s delayed response had already caused journalists to speculate about the president’s indecisive nature.48 Senator Sam Nunn worried that a decision not to produce would only lead those in the Kremlin to conclude that the United States lacked the willpower to make difficult defense choices.49

Though portrayed as a sudden reversal, Carter’s decision was consistent with his earlier views. His foreign policy team, the president concluded, had gone far beyond his initial wishes. “My cautionary words since last summer have pretty well been ignored,”

Carter confided in his diary.50 On the campaign trail, Carter had promised greater consultation in transatlantic relations. His handling of the neutron bomb question,

47 Bartholomew to Brzezinski, “Your Meeting on ERW Tonight,” March 20, 1978, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 22, “Defense - Enhanced Radiation Warhead (3/78-8/78)” folder. 48 Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “The Heated Debate Over the Neutron Bomb,” March 31, 1978, Washington Post. 49 “Dismay Greets N-Bomb Ban Story,” April 5, 1978, Atlanta Constitution.

50 Carter, White House Diary, 179 108

however misguided, fit squarely within that desire. The decision to produce and deploy the neutron bomb represented a chance to redress the traditional imbalances in NATO’s decision making process. Carter hoped to make the process a more equal one, involving greater allied participation:

I didn’t want the United States to develop a weapon and then force it on the Europeans. I thought that time had passed. This happened to the first test case when it did come up.51

Carter’s efforts backfired. His handling of the neutron bomb merely fueled speculation about a “crisis of confidence” in transatlantic relations and in US leadership on the world stage.52 Much of the speculation about an emerging transatlantic rift often honed in on the tensions mounting in US-German relations.53 Relations between Washington and Bonn were “less collaborative and more contentious” than in previous years, the Carter administration’s own internal assessments concluded.54 The whole neutron bomb fiasco did little to ameliorate these tensions, personal or political. Schmidt managed to come through the incident, preserving the impression that “he had been the white knight.”

Carter was left to play the villain.55

51 Jimmy Carter oral history interview, November 29, 1982, Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/the- presidency/interviews-with-the-administration/jimmy-carter-oral-history-president-united-states. 52 Vance, Hard Choices, 92. 53 See, for example, Elizabeth Pond, “Bonn tries to hide dismay at Carter on neutron bomb,” April 10, 1978, Christian Science Monitor. 54 “VII. Net Assessment 1978: Europe,” n.d., JCPL, RAC, NLC-12-33-6-3-3.

55 Robert E. Hunter oral history, August 10, 2004, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Hunter,%20Robert%20E.toc.pdf, 64. 109

A Modernizing Mission

Before a London audience in October 1977, Schmidt publicly sounded the alarm on the growing military imbalance in Europe. Motivated by the ongoing SALT II negotiations between Moscow and Washington, the chancellor warned that an agreement between the two superpowers would magnify the gap between Western theater nuclear capabilities and conventional forces and those of the East. Both modernization and arms control,

Schmidt suggested, could be used to reduce these emerging threats.56 Schmidt’s remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies were later held up as the start of what was dubbed the Euromissiles Crisis.57 But Schmidt’s warnings merely publicized the debates already taking place at NATO over how best to bolster the Alliance’s defenses.

Soviet theater deployments added to existing concerns, giving the debates at

NATO a new sense of urgency. Moscow introduced the Tupolev Tu-22M, a long-range strike bomber dubbed the ‘Backfire’ in NATO circles, and the RSD-10 Pioneer intermediate-range ballistic missile, known throughout the West as the SS-20. Though the

SS-20s were replacements for missiles already deployed in Europe—the SS-4s and SS-5s

—Moscow’s new missiles were far more accurate than their predecessors. They were faster to fire and easier to reload, and each SS-20 deployed included three warheads capable of striking three distinct targets. The SS-4s and SS-5s, by comparison, had been dismissed as nothing more than “rubble bouncers.”58 Recent technological advancements,

56 Helmut Schmidt, “The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture,” Survival, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1978): 3-4. 57 Fred Kaplan, “Warning Over New Missiles for NATO,” December 9, 1979, The New York Times.

58 Gregory Treverton, “Red Pepper in the SALT,” April 29, 1979, The Observer. 110

such as the emergence of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), also raised concerns about an increase in medium-range threats from the Soviet Union.59

Moscow’s SS-20 and Backfire deployments returned “the recurrent psycho- political theme of coupling” to the fore in transatlantic debates.60 With new intermediate- range Soviet forces currently being deployed in Europe, the Western European allies again worried that US security might be decoupled from that of the continent. The prospect of decoupling, a chronic concern in transatlantic relations, raised the stakes and contributed to the political need to counter Moscow’s SS-20 deployments. Schmidt’s remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies reflected the severity of these concerns.

Of the Western allies, West German anxieties were the most acute. Analysts in

Bonn had long worried about what they termed the Eurostrategic balance, pushing for briefings on the matter since the mid-1970s.61 It tapped into broader strategic issues facing the Germans and, in particular, the ruling Social Democrats. West German politicians could not champion a defense based on tactical nuclear weapons—they would be used on German soil against Germans—but the weapons were still necessary as a

59 NPG communiqué, 8-9 Jun. 1977, NATO Final Communiques, 1975-1980, 75; “High Level Group (HLG) History,” 9 Dec. 1981, NATO, IMSM-0612-81. 60 Johan Jørgen Holst, “The Double-Track Decision Revisited,” in The European Missiles Crisis: Nuclear Weapons and Security Policy, ed. Hans-Henrik Holm and Nikolaj Petersen (London: Frances Pinter, 1983), 45.

61 Beckett memorandum, “NPG: The Balance of Nuclear Forces,” March 24, 1977, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 22103, File 27-4-NATO-1-16, Part 28. William Burr lays out the links between West German concerns about the Eurostrategic balance and the Dual-Track Decision in William Burr, “A Question of Confidence: Theater Nuclear Forces, US Policy toward Germany, and the Origins of the Euromissile Crisis, 1975– 1976,” in The Euromissile Crisis, 123-38. 111

crucial link in NATO’s forward defense.62 Before Schmidt visited Washington in July

1977, Vance warned that the chancellor would likely encourage the administration to keep its options open in SALT, particularly those relating to theater nuclear forces.63

At the 1977 London Summit, as part of the Carter administration’s initiatives to strengthen the Alliance, NATO’s members had agreed to develop a program to improve the Western defense posture. As part of this assessment, a task force focused on the question of TNF, building on the work already done in the Nuclear Planning Group. This task force was upgraded at their October 1977 meeting in Bari, and came to be known as the High Level Group (HLG). Modernization of NATO’s theater nuclear forces had taken on even greater significance after the neutron bomb fiasco. The TNF issue increasingly came to be viewed as a psychological one and a litmus test for the overall health of the

Alliance.64 The Western allies, many concluded, could not afford to repeat the mistakes made over the neutron bomb.65 The need for Washington to “recoup that loss”—in particular, the further erosion of Bonn’s confidence—offered a compelling reason to pursue modernization.66 The origins of the Dual-Track Decision therefore could be found

62 Franz L. Rademacher, “Dissenting Partners: The NATO Nuclear Planning Group 1965-1976,” (Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 2008), 149-50. 63 Vance to Carter, “Visit of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Federal Republic of Germany, July 13-15, 1977,” July 8, 1977, JCPL, RAC, NLC-23-21-2-19-1. 64 Carrington, Genscher draft memorandum of conversation, 23:00, October 31, 1979, TNA-UK, FCO 28/3695; Wright memorandum, 18 Sept. 1979, TNA-UK, FCO 28/3694; Carter, Luns et al. memorandum of conversation, October 12, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-23-6-2-16-1. 65 Carrington, Genscher draft memorandum of conversation, 23:00, October 31, 1979, TNA-UK, FCO 28/3695.

66 James E. Goodby oral history, December 10, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Goodby, %20James%20E.toc.pdf, 82. 112

in a constellation of transatlantic issues: the need to reinforce US leadership after the botched neutron bomb affair; NATO’s ongoing debates about theater nuclear forces; the anxieties resulting from SALT II and the possible decoupling of European and US security; and, of course, concrete improvements to the Soviet Union’s military capabilities.67

For all the headaches caused by the neutron bomb, that round of controversy provided a valuable lesson for the NATO allies and prepared them for the difficulties which lay ahead as they constructed and then adopted the Dual-Track Decision. “It’s like getting cowpox so you don’t get smallpox later on,” as Robert Hunter later put it.68 Allied officials, for instance, assumed that any deployment of new missiles to Western Europe would stir public opposition—and the neutron bomb affair had indicated just how contentious the deployment of new missiles could become.69 Western appraisals accordingly underscored the need to present any improvements to NATO’s theater nuclear forces as a continuation of existing defense policy. Emphasis should be placed on

“preserving the fabric of deterrence and maintaining the solidarity of the Alliance,” taking great pains to prevent perceptions that the allies were carving out a larger role for

67 Leopoldo Nuti, “The Origins of the 1979 Dual Track Decision,” in Crisis of Détente, 65. 68 Robert E. Hunter oral history, August 10, 2004, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Hunter,%20Robert%20E.toc.pdf, 67.

69 “Theater Nuclear Force Modernization,” n.d., LOC, Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 85, “Theater Nuclear Forces (TNF) 1978-79” folder. 113

theater nuclear forces in NATO’s overall strategy.70 The Alliance’s commitment to pursuing détente would also play a key role in this public presentation as parallel to defense improvements.71

At NATO’s May 1978 summit in Washington, the allies approved the Long-Term

Defense Program, a framework to improve and modernize allied defenses which emerged out of the previous year of studies. The Long-Term Defense Program outlined an approach designed to redress the existing (and growing) imbalances with the Warsaw

Pact and keep allied defense costs down. It encompassed a range of measures from logistics and reserve mobilization to theater nuclear forces.72 With the Long-Term

Defense Program, the Western allies offered a visible demonstration of their commitment to meet the challenges of the Soviet military build-up.

Alongside the Long-Term Defense Program, the Western allies approved a study on the current state of East-West relations. The study itself came to largely negative conclusions about the prospects for the future. On possible progress in arms control negotiations, for example, it flatly noted that “the task ahead will not be an easy one.”

Soviet planners accepted strategic parity, but the continued build-up of both conventional

70 Draft report to the DPC, “NPG LTDP Improvements to NATO’s Theatre Nuclear Force Posture,” April 27, 1978, NATO, NPG/WP(78)3. For similar arguments, see Luns note, “Public Presentation of the Long- Term Defence Programme,” March 14, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)18. 71 Luns memorandum, “Overall Summary Appraisal,” November 28, 1977, NATO, DPC/D(77)29.

72 The ten areas identified in the Long-Term Defense Program were readiness, reinforcement, reserve mobilization, maritime, air defense, command-control-communications, electronic warfare, rationalization, logistics, and theater nuclear forces. 114

and theater nuclear forces contributed to doubts about Moscow’s intentions.73 (No matter how negative its conclusions were, the Canadian permanent representative quipped, the study at least “had the merit of existing.”74) But the Alliance Study on East-West

Relations served a clear purpose: it provided a political complement to the Long-Term

Defense Program, explicitly reaffirming the Alliance’s continued commitment “to take the necessary steps to ensure an effective system of deterrence and defense in order to preserve their security.”75

Pairing the Long-Term Defense Program and the Alliance Study on East-West

Relations implicitly—and, in the text of the Study itself, explicitly—reinforced NATO’s twin pursuit of détente and defense. The Western allies paired their calls for defense modernization with a broad reaffirmation of their commitment to improving relations with the East.76 The Harmel Report, the British permanent representative concluded, was even more significant and salient then in 1978, more so than at the time of its publication in 1967.77 Not only were NATO governments addressing defense issues, they could demonstrate to their publics that they were also “giving imaginative thought and effort to questions of détente and disarmament.”78 Cultivating such an image mattered all the more

73 NAC report, “Alliance Study on East-West Relations,” May 22, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)35(Revised). 74 “Summary record of a meeting of the Council held at the NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on Tuesday, 16th May, 1978 at 9.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m.,” July 4, 1978, NATO, C-R(78)19. 75 NAC report, “Alliance Study on East-West Relations,” May 22, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)35(Revised). 76 Owen to Vance, May 6, 1978, TNA-UK, PREM 16/1781. 77 NAC summary record, Brussels, May 16, 1978, NATO, C-R(78)19.

78 Figgis to Howells, “NATO’s 30th Anniversary,” November 14, 1978, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1708. 115

as the Soviet Union predictably pointed to the Long-Term Defense Program as prime evidence that the West had decided to abandon détente and now wished to start a new arms race.79 Even the timing of the Washington Summit was offered up as evidence of

NATO’s militarist tendencies. Soviet press coverage pointed to the Western allies’ decision to hold the summit in late May, which meant NATO leaders left the United

Nations Special Session on Disarmament early, as an indication they did not take disarmament and détente as seriously as they claimed.80

Joseph Luns worried that “the battle for men’s minds” constituted one of the largest threats now facing the Alliance. Far from a new concern, the Secretary General saw it as an issue growing more important by the day. Voters across the Alliance seemed to have little appreciation for the realities of NATO’s relations with the East, and NATO’s members were “failing to focus public opinion more clearly on the threat to our security.”

Worse still were the allies’ efforts to convince their young people of NATO’s relevance.81

Allied initiatives tried to dispel this public confusion. NATO, for instance, produced films to educate Western citizens about the Alliance's contributions to security, though few conveyed adequately (at least in the eyes of national information officials) the importance of détente.82 Though concerns continued to mount regarding the current state of East-

79 Madden to Llewellyn Smith, “NATO Summit – Soviet Reaction,” August 23, 1978, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1482. 80 Arkady Maslennikov, “Survey: International Week – Two Approaches,” June 4, 1978, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 30, No. 22 (June 1978), 6. 81 Luns report, “Annual Political Appraisal 1978,” May 22, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)44.

82 “Conference of National Information Officials,” December 27, 1978, NATO, C-M(78)92. 116

West relations, the strategy of détente was no less important to the everyday health and functioning of the Alliance.

Parallel Paths

In August 1978, the Carter administration produced a review of its long-range theater nuclear force (LRTNF) policy going forward. PRM-38 instructed the Special

Coordination Committee (SCC) to study the question of modernization, considering its implications as both a political and a military issue. The final report recommended a double-barreled approach, reminiscent of the earlier scheme for the neutron bomb. Any response should include both modernization and arms control initiatives as an “integrated strategy.”83 Only through a paired approach, US briefings concluded, could the Alliance protect both its political and security interests. Modernization alone could contribute to an arms race with the Soviet Union, thereby adding to the threat facing the West and increasing political tensions in Europe. An attempt to reach an arms control agreement without any corresponding modernization, however, seemed close to impossible. Without a credible concentration of forces to leverage in the negotiations, the United States would be unlikely to reach a deal with Moscow.84

83 Ericson, Vest to Vance, “SCC Meeting on PRM-38, August 23,” 16 Aug. 1978, DNSA, http:// nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb301/doc02.pdf. For more detail on the Carter administration’s approach, including its implications for US-Soviet relations, see Freeman, “The Making of an Accidental Crisis,” 338.

84 Gelb to Aaron, McGiffert et al., “US Objectives Paper for the Fall Bilaterals on Theater Nuclear Issues,” September 8, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-31-147-7-14-3. 117

Over the autumn of 1978, the Carter administration held bilateral consultations with the British, French, and West Germans in the hopes of gathering support for the paired approach recommended in PRM-38. These meetings reached no real consensus; none of the governments had developed a strong sense of their desired course of action yet. But US planners were already convinced that the two-pronged approach was the most desirable course of action. British officials, however, saw no benefit in including the proposed arms control track, “not even as a method for managing the domestic and East-

West political problems that new deployments could cause.”85 When the North Atlantic

Council met in November, Washington accordingly gave a lukewarm endorsement of their two-pronged plan.

Support for a paired approach emerged when the West’s Big Four gathered in the new year. In early January, Callaghan, Carter, Giscard, and Schmidt met for informal, beachfront meetings on the French island of Guadeloupe. Before the four leaders’

Caribbean summit, Haig outlined three central issues which would need to be addressed in their discussions: the level of improvements needed to preserve NATO’s policy of flexible response; a program to modernize the forces; and the exact relationship between modernization and negotiation in constraining the Soviet systems already deployed.86

Vance’s briefings for the president emphasized that Schmidt intended to raise concerns

85 Tarnoff to Brzezinski, “Alliance Consultations on Theater Nuclear Issues,” October 17, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-132-49-5-1-5.

86 Haig to Carter, “Guadeloupe Meeting,” December 26, 1978, LOC, Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 52, “James E. Carter” folder. 118

about NATO’s overall strategy, particularly with respect to nuclear questions. The

Secretary of State predicted that the chancellor’s remarks would revolve around his

“known conviction” that strategic parity between the superpowers amplified threats in the

European theater.87

The fact that the Big Four agreed on a course of action by no means indicated that they shared the same views. The leaders’ conversations at the Guadeloupe Summit pointed to the key structural issues with which any approach would need to grapple.

Giscard and Callaghan rejected outright the inclusion of British and French nuclear systems in any negotiations which might take place on TNF. After their talks on January

5, Carter recorded two telling observations in his diary, both pertaining to the German position. The first was that Schmidt insisted that a strong Federal Republic would cause difficulties throughout the West; “Germany was still not trusted by other European nations.” The second of Carter’s conclusions was that Schmidt, unlike Callaghan, Giscard or himself, demonstrated an “attitude … toward appeasing the Soviets.”88

Schmidt insisted that the Federal Republic could not bear an undue burden in any modernization of NATO’s theater nuclear forces.89 A greater nuclear role for the Federal

Republic would pose difficulties in Bonn’s relations with its neighbors, be they Eastern or

87 Vance to Carter, “Guadeloupe Summit Meeting, January 5-6, 1979,” December 20, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-15-119-6-9-9. 88 Carter, White House Diary, 274.

89 Haig to Carter, “Guadeloupe Meeting,” December 26, 1978, LOC, Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 52, “James E. Carter” folder. 119

Western.90 Debates about TNF encapsulated the Federal Republic’s “eternal problem.”

The Germans, as Klaus Blech put it, needed “to be strong enough to beat [the] Russians, but weaker than Luxembourg.”91 Any decision would need to grapple with these psychological questions about the power structures of the Atlantic Alliance. Schmidt worried that the Federal Republic might be left exposed to Soviet pressure. If Bonn were to take too much of the burden in modernizing NATO’s nuclear forces, it could produce a situation in which the Federal Republic would become “the ‘whipping boy’ of the Soviet

Union.”92 To avoid singling them out, additional basing countries needed to be identified.

The British agreed to host new missiles, but London’s commitment did not offset German concerns. Bonn again insisted that there be another basing country on the continent.93

Carter, for his part, wondered why other European countries would agree to accept the missiles, “if Germany was not prepared to accept the necessary deployment.”94

Over the spring of 1979, the Western allies ironed out the details of the framework endorsed by the four at Guadeloupe. With a commitment envisioned to pursue two simultaneous prongs of modernization and arms control talks, NATO established an additional consultative body to complement the High Level Group (HLG). If the HLG

90 Tarnoff to Brzezinski, “Alliance Consultations on Theater Nuclear Issues,” October 17, 1978, JCPL, RAC, NLC-132-49-5-1-5. 91 Vance to US Embassy Bonn, “Bilateral with the FRG on TNF Issues,” October 16, 1978, DNSA, http:// nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb301/doc04.pdf. 92 Haig to Carter, “Guadeloupe Meeting,” December 26, 1978, LOC, Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 52, “James E. Carter” folder. 93 Haig to Brzezinski, “Guadeloupe Follow-Up on TNF Modernization,” February 3, 1979, LOC, Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 85, “Theater Nuclear Forces (TNF) 1978-79” folder.

94 James Callaghan later concluded that this comment was “somewhat unfair” to Schmidt: James Callaghan, Time and Change (London: Collins, 1987), 543-4. 120

were to remain the only consultative body, it could easily contribute to public perceptions that NATO’s central focus was modernization and that arms control was an afterthought.

NATO’s decision-making structures themselves should mirror the two-pronged and balanced nature of the planned decision. To that end, the Special Group was created and tasked with coordinating NATO’s arms control policies. This new body, British and West

German officials hoped, would demonstrate by virtue of its existence that the Alliance took seriously the need for arms control negotiations.95

When NATO’s foreign ministers met in The Hague in June, the two-pronged approach seemed all but set. “We’ve learned the lesson of the neutron bomb exercise,” one minister publicly remarked. Any modernization of NATO’s theater nuclear forces would be done in parallel with arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union.96 As the

Alliance fleshed out the details of this approach, anti-nuclear sentiments continued to rise. An accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania stoked fears, as did the release of the Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas film The China

Syndrome which depicted a meltdown at a nuclear plant. Spurred on by the incident at

Three Mile Island in March, demonstrations took place across the Alliance highlighting the dangers of nuclear energy to everyday citizens. On May 7, 70,000 people marched on

Capitol Hill, calling for “no more nukes” and “no more Harrisburgs.”97

95 Thomson to Aaron, “Mini-SCC Meeting, Wednesday, February 21, 11:30 a.m.,” February 20, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-132-119-12-2-8. 96 Robert Stephens, “ATO (sic) worries about detente and deterrents,” June 3, 1979, The Observer.

97 “70,000 Stage Anti-Nuclear Rally in D.C.,” May 7, 1979, Atlanta Constitution. 121

Western officials also anticipated another robust propaganda campaign on the part of the Warsaw Pact in the hopes of derailing the Alliance’s decision. As part of this campaign, they predicted that Moscow would appeal to détente as a means of stopping

NATO’s planned deployments.98 At the Warsaw Pact’s Political Consultative Committee meeting the previous November, for example, they had endorsed a series of proposals to advance disarmament and détente, such as a global treaty on the renunciation of force

(including a ban on the use of nuclear weapons).99 In Washington, analysts at the State

Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research assumed the Kremlin would try and head off a NATO decision on modernization with a preemptive proposal designed to

“rally West European opposition to NATO plans.” No matter the specifics of the initiative, they concluded it would work to advance core Soviet goals including shielding the recent deployments of the SS-20, making it more difficult for NATO to modernize its own theater forces, and occupying the “political propaganda high ground.”100

Soviet propaganda efforts, inspired by the perceived successes of the Pact’s earlier campaign against the neutron bomb, gained momentum throughout the summer and fall of 1979. Eastern efforts to prevent a modernization decision relied on familiar tactics.

Brezhnev’s March 2 address in Moscow portrayed the basing of new missiles in Western

98 Luns to Permanent Representatives, “Summary of the Council Meeting on 9th May, 1979 on East-West Relations,” May 21, 1979, NATO, PO/79/54. 99 “Declaration of the Warsaw Treaty Member States,” November 23, 1978, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 30, No. 47 (Dec. 1978), 7-10; Political Committee report, “Meeting of the Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee,” May 3, 1979, NATO, C-M(79)30.

100 Bureau of Intelligence and Research memorandum, “Theater Nuclear Force Negotiations: The Initial Soviet Approach,” August 10, 1979, DNSA, Soviet Estimate collection. 122

Europe as a campaign spearheaded by the Carter administration.101 Warsaw Pact messaging aimed to sow “doubt and confusion” amongst Western publics. NATO governments, they argued, were out of touch with their citizens.102 Soviet statements cast it as a binary choice: either Western publics went along with “unnecessary, US promoted

TNF modernization and a return to the Cold War” or they could push for the continuation of détente.103 The Warsaw Pact proposed a multilateral conference on military détente.104

Soviet efforts remained confined to sweeping disarmament proposals in the summer of

1979. After Brezhnev and Carter had finally reached an agreement on SALT II and signed it at the highly publicized Vienna Summit in June, Brezhnev was reluctant to take steps that might stop the Senate from ratifying the agreement. As opposition to SALT II strengthened over the early autumn, however, Brezhnev’s tune changed.105

On October 6, 1979, before a crowd in East Berlin, Brezhnev again portrayed

NATO’s upcoming modernization decision as one designed and managed by

Washington.106 Brezhnev’s speech was clearly devised to forestall the Dual-Track

Decision. The Soviet General Secretary offered to reduce the number of intermediate

101 Political Committee report, “Mr. Brezhnev’s Moscow Speech,” May 3, 1979, NATO, C-M(79)31. 102 Jung report, “Brezhnev Letters to Allied Heads of State and Government concerning the Enhanced Radiation Weapon,” May 3, 1977, NATO, C-M(78)4. 103 Parris memorandum, “The Soviet TNF Blitz -- Playing the European Card?,” n.d. [1979], JCPL, RAC, NLC-23-13-7-2-3. 104 German delegation briefing paper, “Expert Working Group on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: The Soviet Union,” October 3, 1979, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 12598, File 20-1-1-6, Part 41. 105 Artemy M. Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 17-24; Zubok, A Failed Empire, 254-8.

106 Moscow to FCO, “Brezhnev’s Berlin Speech,” October 17, 1979, TNA-UK, FCO 28/3694. 123

range missiles deployed by Moscow, provided of course that NATO agreed not to deploy any new theater nuclear forces of its own in Western Europe. Alongside this offer,

Brezhnev also announced the unilateral reduction of some 20,000 Soviet troops and 1,000 tanks stationed in the DDR. Commentators in Izvestia underscored the same theme: it was the United States that hoped to obtain military superiority, not the Soviet Union.107

By the fall, both the High Level Group and the Special Group had completed their respective assessments. “All efforts from here on,” one NATO assessment concluded,

“should point toward, and contribute to but not prejudge” the foreign and defense ministers’ final decision in December.108 Two of the potential basing countries, Belgium and the Netherlands, worried about mounting public and political opposition to the envisioned deployments. In Belgium, the government was a weak coalition comprised of five different political parties. Publicly, the Socialist Foreign Minister, Jacques Simonet, expressed his support for the deployment of US missiles to Western Europe. But the question of Belgium hosting some of these missiles became a complex matter, embroiled in domestic party politics. Faced with vocal opposition to the missiles, the Belgian political scene was a fractured landscape with splits between and within political parties.

A full-scale political crisis resulting from the basing decision was only averted when the government survived a vote of non-confidence.

107 V. Matveyev, “Western Europe Faces a Choice,” 12 Oct. 1979, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 31, No. 41 (Nov. 1979), 6.

108 Davies to Military Committee, “Briefing on High Level Group and Special Group,” October 9, 1979, NATO, IMSM-0373-79. 124

Approval in the Netherlands also seemed unlikely given widespread public opposition to the missiles. In October, the Dutch Parliament debated allowing the missiles to be based on Dutch territory. Minister-President Dries Van Agt, responding to pressure from his central coalition partner, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), linked the deployment of missiles in the Netherlands to the outcome of any US-Soviet arms control negotiations on theater systems.109

The parliamentary debates in The Hague, most concluded, were only the “opening skirmish” in what promised to be a long and contentious period in NATO’s history.110

Sure enough, in the final weeks leading up to the December 12 meeting, the Dutch government tabled a slew of schemes designed to alter NATO’s final decision. Dutch initiatives proposed to defer the decision and reduce the number of missiles included in the modernization package. They tried to link the decision to SALT II explicitly, a measure the British were convinced would be impossible for the United States to accept.111 They also called for an explicit clause in the final communiqué, clarifying that the missile deployments could be reduced to zero depending on the progress made in arms control negotiations.112 To keep the Dutch in line, the remaining allies used the promise of access to consultations; either an ally participated fully in the Dual-Track

109 “Netherlands: Theater Nuclear Forces Debate,” October 15, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-31-127-4-33-7. 110 “Netherlands: Theater Nuclear Forces Debate,” October 15, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-31-127-4-33-7. 111 Norbury to Alexander, “Bonn Visit: Defence Matters,” October 30, 1979, TNA-UK, PREM 19/59.

112 Vance to Carter, November 28, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-128-14-13-20-8. 125

Decision and, as such, in allied consultations on TNF, or they would be invited to neither.113

In late November, Denmark’s permanent representative Anker Svart called for the

Dual-Track Decision to be postponed by six months. Doing so, he argued, would demonstrate the Alliance’s genuine commitment to détente.114 Svart’s initiative received no support—even the Dutch rejected it.115 Canadian assessments dismissed the possibility of a deferral as “inconceivable.” The actual decision had already been made. All that remained to be decided before the North Atlantic Council met on December 12 was which countries would agree publicly to accept the deployment of new US missiles.

Would five countries announce their plans to house the missiles? Or would Belgium and the Netherlands defer a final decision on account of public opposition?116

A decision with only three basing countries, Canadian analysts worried, would contribute to the sense that NATO was now “a two-tier alliance” divided by relative size and power. An upper tier, consisting of the United States and the large European allies, would play a leading role in TNF modernization. The lower tier—the smaller European countries and Canada—would be left out, should Belgium and the Netherlands not accept the missiles. Such a division, the Canadians feared, would erode the “political influence

113 Thomson to Aaron, “Mini-SCC on TNF,” December 21, 1979, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 121, “SCM 108 – Mini-SCC – TNF (Theater Nuclear Forces) 1/21/80” folder. 114 BNATO to External Affairs, “TNF Modernization and AC: Perm Reps Mtg Nov 28,” November 29, 1979, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 22105, Part 40. 115 Vance to Carter, November 28, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-128-14-13-20-8.

116 BNATO to External Affairs, “TNF Modernization and Arms Control,” November 22, 1979, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 22105, Part 40. 126

and credibility” of the smaller transatlantic partners and translate into diminished support for disarmament and détente, priorities often championed by these smaller allies.117

On December 12, NATO officially adopted the Dual-Track Decision at a special gathering of foreign and defense ministers, the first such meeting in the Alliance’s history. The United States agreed to pursue two “parallel and complementary” tasks: the deployment of new missiles to Western Europe and the pursuit of arms control talks with the Soviet Union. Italy, the Federal Republic, and the United Kingdom agreed to accept the Pershing IIs and cruise missiles with deployments scheduled to begin in late 1983.

Both Belgium and the Netherlands, however, adopted what was referred to as a “yes, but…” model. The two countries accepted and endorsed TNF modernization in theory, but deferred their final decisions on the missile deployments to a later date.118 Belgian and Dutch reservations did undermine the display of allied unity and consensus, and indicated the kind of problems that could crop up in the years to come. Already, the

Belgian and Dutch compromises stemmed from precarious domestic political situations.

Just days before NATO’s ministers met to take the Dual-Track Decision, some 50,000 people took to the streets of Brussels to protest. If any political crisis undermined the government’s position in Italy (not at all a remote possibility at the time), the Federal

117 BNATO to External Affairs, “TNF Modernization and Arms Control,” November 22, 1979, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 22105, Part 40.

118 National Foreign Assessment Center memorandum, “Belgium’s Debate Over Theater Nuclear Force Modernization: A Political Update,” January 18, 1980, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 121, “SCM 108 – Mini-SCC – TNF (Theater Nuclear Forces) 1/21/80” folder. 127

Republic would be left as the only continental—and non-nuclear—country accepting the

US missiles.

Nevertheless, allied leaders proclaimed the Dual-Track Decision a success. NATO had responded to the challenges facing the Alliance, charting a course which would improve the security of Western Europe. Taking the Dual-Track Decision demonstrated the resolve of NATO’s member governments, all the more important after the neutron bomb fiasco. Alongside the Dual-Track Decision, the Western allies also announced the unilateral withdrawal of 1,000 US atomic weapons from Europe. The move underscored the allied message that the total number of NATO warheads would not increase as a result of the decision to modernize.

The very structure of the Dual-Track Decision created potential problems for the future. Pairing modernization and arms control negotiations replicated the cyclical and mutually reinforcing structures prescribed by the Harmel Report. Support for the deployment of new missiles depended on progress in arms control negotiations. The

United States needed to demonstrate a genuine commitment to reaching an agreement, if not tangible progress in the talks, in order to convince allied publics that Washington was a sober custodian of the West’s nuclear capabilities. Before NATO’s forces had been modernized, however, the Soviet Union had little incentive to negotiate in earnest. Until the Pershing IIs and cruise missiles were deployed in 1983, Washington had no 128

meaningful leverage in arms control talks.119 Why would Moscow negotiate away real weapons in exchange for missiles that existed only on the drawing board?

Ultimately, the exact nature of the relationship between modernization and negotiation remained ambiguous. The ministers assembled on December 12 affirmed that the two tracks were “parallel and complementary,” but what did that mean in real terms?120 The Special Group had offered a clear answer in its August report: TNF negotiations must not be seen as a “substitute” for NATO’s planned deployments, but rather “a complement.”121 In practice, it was never that simple. The desirability of the available options depended on how one assessed the core problem that NATO was trying to fix. If the issue was a gap in capabilities created by deficiencies in NATO’s posture, modernization was necessary. But if the problem had been caused by Moscow’s SS-20 deployments, arms control was a reasonable option to redress the situation.122

NATO’s own statements often only further muddied the waters. Allied communiqués regularly affirmed that NATO would continue to modernize its defenses so long as a verifiable and equitable arms control agreement had not been reached with

119 “Arms Control for Theater Nuclear Forces,” November 27, 1978, LOC, Alexander Meigs Haig Papers, Box 71, “Project Memo File 1978 Oct. - Dec.” folder. 120 Special Meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers, December 12, 1979, NATO Final Communiques, 1975-1980, 123. 121 Vance to all NATO capitals, “Draft Final Report of Special Group,” August 20, 1979, JCPL, RAC, NLC-12R-55-7-1-1; NPG communiqué, November 13-14, 1979, NATO Final Communiques, 1975-1980, 117.

122 John Cartwright and Julian Critchley, Cruise, Pershing and SS-20 The Search for Consensus: Nuclear Weapons in Europe (London: Brassey’s, 1985), 13. 129

Moscow.123 With statements like these, the Western allies laid the foundations for later problems stemming from public anxiety as to Washington’s willingness to negotiate in good faith with the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

The Harmel Report’s paired approach remained the backbone of allied strategy during the late 1970s, reflected in the allies’ handling of the neutron bomb, the Long-Term Defense

Program, and, above all, the Dual-Track Decision. Each of these contributed to a political landscape where the public pursuit of détente remained crucial to the future success of

NATO’s defense policies.

The Dual-Track Decision, in particular, was both product and cause of a vicious cycle. The deterioration of East-West relations made it easier for the Western allies to finally commit to a program of modernizing their theater nuclear forces.124 Diminished public confidence in détente, as well as a relative lack of progress in recent years, meant that there seemed to be less on the line to jeopardize. (It was an assumption that proved to be completely wrong with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.) Soviet advances in their own nuclear force posture, too, made it far easier to sell. The Dual-Track Decision was sold as nothing more than a response to the SS-20, ignoring the years of debate which predated Moscow’s deployments. The SS-20 offered a convenient narrative: Moscow had

123 See, for examples, final communiqué, NAC ministerial meeting, May 30-31, 1978, NATO Final Communiques 1975-1980, 94; DPC communiqué, December 5-6, 1978, NATO Final Communiques 1975-1980, 98.

124 Nuti, “Origins of the Dual Track Decision,” 68. 130

deployed, and so NATO must counter-deploy. But NATO’s plans to improve its defenses opened up the Alliance and its members to the charge that they no longer cared about détente, a problem made all the more acute by the turmoil of the early 1980s. Chapter 4: Carrots and Sticks

“We have to take into account that East-West relations have been affected by the behavior of the Soviet Union. However, it is in large part up to us to control and structure the impact of the current crisis on the future course of East-West relations. In this context it is … important to keep in mind that we have not pursued arms control and détente between ourselves and the Soviet Union as a concession to Soviet interests.”1 — Johan Jørgen Holst, 1980

“We need to take a new look at [the] whole matter of strategy. Trade was supposed to make the Soviets moderate, instead it has allowed them to build armaments instead of consumer products. Their socialism is an [economic] failure. Wouldn’t we be doing more for their people if we let their system fail instead of continually bailing it out?”2 — Ronald Reagan, 1980

1980 was a terrible year to be Jimmy Carter. A mere seven days into the decade, Lyndon

Johnson’s former National Security Advisor Walt Rostow likened the president’s position to that of Harry Truman in 1947 or John Kennedy in 1961. The United States faced

“multiple crises, deeply rooted, after a considerable period when things have moved against us: in the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.”3 Hundreds of student revolutionaries had occupied the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, taking 66 Americans hostage. The Iran Hostage Crisis encapsulated the problems of the decade: it was a harsh reminder that the United States no longer seemed to control its

1 “Statement by State Secretary Johan Jørgen Holst, January 15, 1980,” LAC, RG 25, Vol. 18540, File 20-1-1-6, Part 43. 2 Reagan diary entry, February 4, 1981, The Reagan Diaries, vol. 1, January 1981-October 1985, ed. Douglas Brinkley (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 16.

3 Rostow to Carter, January 7, 1980, NARA, RG 59, Office of the Deputy Secretary, Records of Warren Christopher, 1977–1980, Box 1, “Iran (Hostages)/Afghanistan/Olympics 1980” folder. 131 132

own destiny—and it played out on television screens day after day.4 French sociologist

Michel Crozier wondered what the decline of US power meant. The tagline for Crozier’s

1980 book Le Mal Américain asserted that the world’s preeminent power no longer knew where it was going, leaving the rest of the world questioning itself.5

The future of East-West relations seemed no more certain. Carter ‘discovered’ a

Soviet brigade in Cuba in the fall of 1979, insisting publicly that its presence could be not be tolerated.6 As it turned out, the brigade had been on the island since the Cuban Missile

Crisis, and the Americans had accepted the fact. To Washington’s transatlantic partners, the issue of Soviet troops in Cuba seemed a “bewildering sideshow” that showed just how precarious relations between the superpowers had become in recent years.7 Then, in late December, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The invasion contributed to a sharp downturn in relations between the superpowers, leaving many observers to conclude that “the patient known as détente had finally passed away.”8 Within NATO, reactions to the Soviet invasion diverged and spurred public speculation about a split in the Alliance. The Western allies’ competing interpretations belied broader strategic differences, long present in their approaches to East-West relations. The United States

4 David Farber, Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America’s First Encounter with Radical Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 2. 5 Among French intellectuals, Crozier was notably pro-American. Michel Crozier, Le Mal Américain (Paris: Fayard, 1980). 6 Carter remarks, “Soviet Combat Troops in Cuba,” September 7, 1979, PPP: JC 1979, Book 2, 1602. 7 “Bilateral Planning Talks – 29 Sept. – 5 Oct. 1979,” n.d., NARA, RG 59, Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Director, Records of Anthony Lake, Box 13, “TL APAG (Athens), Eur. Pl. T. (Sweden, Germany, England, France) 9/25-10/6/79” folder.

8 Dimitri K. Simes, “The Death of Détente?,” International Security, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Summer 1980): 3. 133

understood détente “in global policy terms,” whereas the Western Europeans saw it as “a condition of life.”9 The Canadians were nowhere to be found, even in many of their own assessments.

Ronald Reagan’s election in November 1980 stoked public fears that the United

States saw East-West relations differently from its partners. Reagan spoke bluntly about the shortcomings of the Soviet system, and many concluded that the president was nothing more than a hardliner and an anti-Soviet crusader. When the Polish government declared a state of martial law in December 1981, Reagan’s response aggravated these concerns. The administration introduced sanctions, punishing the Soviet Union for

Warsaw’s crackdown, but these measures also seemed designed to punish Western governments and firms for doing business with the East and imperil the future of East-

West relations. As in 1980, Washington’s response alarmed many in the West. Reagan’s sanctions, like Carter’s, seemed prime evidence that the United States did not care about preserving détente in Europe.

The Greatest Threat to Peace

On December 25, 1979, Soviet tanks and soldiers began to pour across the border into neighboring Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion was the latest and most drastic of

Moscow’s attempts to shore up communist rule in Kabul. The Soviet Union, as Andrei

Gromyko had told his Politburo colleagues in March, simply could not afford to “lose

9 MacGuigan to Trudeau, “Afghanistan: Gaps in Perceptions,” March 10, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 15569, File 20-1-1-1, Part 18. 134

Afghanistan.”10 Earlier that year, defense minister Dmitri Ustinov and Yuri Andropov, the

Chairman of the KGB, had recommended a military response to an uprising in Herat. But

Brezhnev had refused to act. An open Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the General

Secretary feared, would jeopardize relations with Washington. Given Brezhnev’s desire to finally conclude an agreement on SALT II, he was not willing to take the risk.11

Brezhnev’s concerns about damaging US-Soviet relations diminished over the course of the year. Seen from the Kremlin, many of Washington’s recent decisions seemed to signal a waning interest in détente. Carter’s increases in defense spending, his handling of the issue of Soviet troops in Cuba, the Senate’s delays in ratifying SALT II, and NATO’s Dual-Track Decision all suggested a more aggressive and combative attitude, tipping the scales in the Politburo. Losing Afghanistan would be all the more damaging to Soviet interests if it occurred at the same time as the United States moved away from a policy of détente.12 The possibility that Brezhnev and his advisors might come to such a conclusion did not escape US officials. In September 1979, Director of

Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner had warned that Moscow might “be more inclined to gamble on a substantial intervention in Afghanistan” as a result of the perceived downturn in US-Soviet relations.13 Strikingly, the Politburo made the final decision to

10 “Transcript of CPSU CC Politburo Discussions on Afghanistan,” March 17, 1979, Wilson Center Digital Archive, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113260. 11 Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye, 19. 12 Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye, 24; Zubok, A Failed Empire, 263.

13 Turner to NSC, “Alert Memorandum on USSR-Afghanistan,” September 14, 1979, JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 1, “Afghanistan, 4-12/1979” folder. 135

invade Afghanistan on the evening of December 12, just hours after NATO took its Dual-

Track Decision.14

When the North Atlantic Council met on January 1, the assembled permanent representatives agreed that Afghanistan had already been lost. The Western allies’ central objective, they believed, should be to prevent further Soviet aggression.15 Rolf Pauls, the

West German permanent representative, warned that “if the West did not react, this would invite similar Soviet adventures and miscalculations. It would repeat the mistakes of the

1930s.” Pauls went on to argue that NATO should consider boycotting the upcoming summer Olympic games in Moscow “as they should have done in 1936.”16 Comparisons to the 1930s abounded. Alessandro Pertini, the Italian president, and Italian foreign minister Franco Malfatti likened the situation to the eve of the Second World War.17

Carter and his advisors drew up a list of possible sanctions in retaliation. Marshall

Brement, one of the NSC’s Soviet specialists, recommended a bare minimum of thirteen measures, including moving closer to the People’s Republic of China (with which the administration had just established formal diplomatic relations), reducing US-Soviet exchange programs, and undertaking a large-scale propaganda campaign. Alongside these measures, Brement proposed an additional twenty-one responses, such as the

14 Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962– 1986) (New York: Times Books, 1995), 437. 15 Rose to FCO, “MIPT: Council Discussion: Comments,” January 1, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/134. 16 Rose to FCO, “MIPT: NATO Council Meeting: Afghanistan,” January 1, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/134.

17 Gardner to State, “European Response to Afghanistan Crisis: Italy,” January 4, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-16-82-2-31-8. 136

reaffirmation of NATO’s 3% defense spending increase and revisiting participation in the

Madrid CSCE review conference.18 On January 4, Carter announced a series of sanctions that limited political, cultural, and economic relations with the Soviet Union. These measures included an embargo on the sale of grain to the Soviet Union, export controls on high-technology goods, and, though the United States “would prefer not to withdraw,”

Carter warned that the Soviet Army’s continued presence in Afghanistan would force spectators and athletes alike to reconsider their attendance at the Moscow Olympics.19

Before Carter’s announcement, British foreign minister Lord Carrington warned of problems to come should the administration announce sanctions without first undertaking full consultations at NATO. Perceptions of an Alliance divided would do little to help the Western position.20 The Foreign Secretary was prescient: the lack of consultation on the part of the Carter administration became a source of considerable tension in the days and months to come. To make matters worse, many of Carter’s proposed measures were politically difficult to implement. Before Carter announced this package of sanctions, the Canadian Embassy in Washington assumed that the administration would abandon the grain embargo and the Olympic boycott, finding them

18 Brement to Brzezinski, “US Reaction to Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,” January 2, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-12-1-3-3-1. 19 Carter remarks, “Address to the Nation on the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,” January 4, 1980, PPP: JC 1980-1981, vol 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1981), 23-4.

20 Carrington to Washington, “My Telno 12 (Not to All): Afghanistan and East-West Relations,” January 3, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/134. 137

too hard to actually implement.21 Carter’s advisors warned of likely opposition to some of the proposed responses. White House Staff Director Alonzo McDonald, for instance, recommended that grain sales be suspended temporarily (with a cap of 90 days) since it would be difficult to sustain sufficient public support for the measure. “Attacking

Afghanistan, a country few of our citizens can spell,” McDonald wrote, “is not the same in their minds as attacking Pearl Harbor.”22 Carter stayed the course, hoping to assert his leadership at home and abroad.23 A firm response, Brement insisted, mattered for the future of relations with the Soviet Union, the NATO allies, and for domestic political reasons.24 Two weeks later, on January 20, Carter delivered an additional ultimatum. If the Soviet Union did not withdraw its forces from Afghanistan within the next month,

Carter asked that the US Olympic Committee and those of “other like-minded nations” not send athletes to compete in the Moscow games.25

Carter’s proposed Olympic boycott required widespread support to be truly effective—but received little.26 Even before Carter had announced a possible boycott,

21 Washington to External Affairs, “Afghanistan: Administration’s Anti-Soviet Options,” January 3, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 14157, File 20-USA-1-3, Part 34. 22 McDonald to Carter, “Commercial Sanctions,” January 4, 1980, JCPL, Alonzo L. McDonald Subject Files, Box 8, “Afghanistan – Grains [Soviet Grain Embargo] 1/1/80-1/15/80 [CF/OA 720]” folder. 23 In his memoirs, Zbigniew Brzezinski refers to this period as one of trying to “make [Carter] into a successful Truman rather than a Wilson”: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 30-1. 24 Brement to Brzezinski, “US Reaction to Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,” January 2, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-12-1-3-3-1. 25 Carter to Kane, “1980 Summer Olympics,” January 20, 1980, PPP: JC 1980–1981, Book 1, 106-7.

26 A detailed treatment of the Olympic boycott can be found in Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 138

many NATO members looked to distance themselves from the proposal. Government spokesmen in Bonn went so far as to deny that it was Rolf Pauls who had suggested the measure.27 Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark did come out strongly in support of the proposed boycott, as did Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, hardly surprising given the prime minister’s longstanding skepticism about détente. British officials entertained numerous alternatives to the Moscow games, such as moving the Olympics to Montreal (the site of the 1976 summer games) and encouraging individual British citizens not to attend.28

Clark’s electoral defeat in February, however, dealt “a body blow” to the administration’s efforts to relocate the games.29 Pierre Trudeau had little personal interest in supporting the boycott and Clark’s earlier efforts were accordingly abandoned by the new Liberal government.30 Not even Thatcher, it turned out, could secure the necessary support from the British Olympic Committee.

Carter’s request that the Senate delay consideration of the SALT II agreement caused particular problems for the NATO allies. Without Senate approval of SALT II, they worried there could be no SALT III and without a SALT III, there would be no framework to hold the negotiations called for in the Dual-Track Decision. In October

1979, Walter Mondale had referred to the treaty as the “central element” of NATO’s two-

27 Leonard Downie, Jr., “Allies Back Off Olympic Boycott,” January 3, 1980, The Washington Post. 28 “Minutes of Full Cabinet CC(80) 2nd,” January 17, 1980, TNA-UK, CAB 128/67. 29 Brement to Brzezinski, “The Olympics,” February 25, 1980, JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject Files, Box 48, “Olympics, 6/79-2/80” folder.

30 Ivan L. Head and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada’s Foreign Policy, 1968– 1984 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995), 209-10. 139

pronged strategy. Now it languished on the back burner. Carter tried to minimize the possible damage, requesting that Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd keep the treaty listed as pending business.31 But the administration bungled the messaging. The White

House described the delay as a response to the state of affairs in the Senate—and, as such, not a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The requested delay, however, was included Carter’s address outlining the administration’s sanctions against the Soviet

Union.

The grain embargo was the most significant of the sanctions introduced by

Washington.32 It brought about serious economic shortages in the Soviet Union. As a result of the limits on US grain, the Soviets were forced to turn to other markets, such as

Argentina, to make up for the shortfall. Doing so cost Moscow an additional $1 billion.

Grain shortages in the Soviet Union led to a scarcity of meat and dairy products (due to the lack of animal feed), which sparked unrest in Soviet cities like Gorky and Togliatti.33

(These impacts were later ignored by the Reagan administration; Reagan personally argued that the grain embargo had punished US farmers more than the Soviet Union.34)

Many of the NATO allies could offer little in the way of support to a grain embargo; the notable exception was Canada, a major grain producer and international exporter. Ottawa

31 Vance, Hard Choices, 389. 32 Vance, Hard Choices, 389. 33 Matthew J. Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 96.

34 Reagan diary entry, February 4, 1981, Reagan Diaries, vol. 1, 16. 140

did not join the Carter administration’s embargo, though they did refuse to sell any additional grain to the Soviet Union.35

Few of Carter’s counterparts shared his appetite for sanctions. Western reactions to the Soviet invasion were lukewarm at best, as few of the allies introduced measures that went beyond limiting individual (and often narrowly defined) exchanges with the

Soviet Union.36 Sir Curtis Keeble, the British Ambassador in Moscow, derided many of the proposed European responses as “mere trivia.”37 The reluctance of NATO’s members was all the more stark given widespread support for the Olympic boycott across East

Asia. If US allies in Asia went along with the measure while the Europeans refused,

Brement worried, it would only add fuel to the fire about NATO’s weakened state.38

French officials, for example, accepted the need to deter future Soviet incursions, but rejected the logic behind Carter’s sanctions. Antipathy in Paris was hardly surprising given the limited public reaction to news of the Soviet invasion. The Quai d’Orsay’s response was so vague, one British assessment noted, “it did not even acknowledge explicitly that the Soviet Union had intervened militarily in Afghanistan.”39 Foreign minister Jean François-Poncet insisted that a firm response from the West would do

35 Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945-1984 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), 362-3. 36 Hardy to External Affairs, “Afghanistan,” February 6, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25123, File 27-4- NATO-3-1-AFGHAN, Part 1. 37 Keeble to FCO, “Afghanistan,” January 11, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/135. 38 Brement to Brzezinski, “The Olympics,” February 25, 1980, JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject Files, Box 48, “Olympics, 6/79-2/80” folder.

39 Hibbert to FCO, “My Tel No: 1035 Afghanistan: French Attitudes,” January 2, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/134. 141

nothing but sink détente and restart the Cold War.40 Events in Afghanistan, as far as

François-Poncet was concerned, were not relevant to East-West relations or to European security.41 Robert Blackwill, the Director for Western European Affairs on Carter’s NSC staff, chalked the French reaction up to the traditional trappings of a Gaullist foreign policy.42 French policy remained focused on preserving Franco-Soviet contacts as a means of keeping open the existing lines of communication with the East.43

Like their French counterparts, officials in Bonn expressed serious doubts about the utility of sanctions. How, they wondered, would the restrictions actually influence

Soviet behavior? Few shared Washington’s “cataclysmic thinking” on Afghanistan, thanks largely to the realities of the country’s geography and politics. Détente mattered more than events in Kandahar, not least for Schmidt’s SPD-FDP coalition who held up

Ostpolitik as their greatest achievement of its decade in power. Afghanistan was far from a sufficient reason to scuttle it. Bonn was, Blackwill concluded, “desperately frightened of losing the tangible day-to-day benefits” of the policy.44

40 “France,” n.d. [1980], JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 2, “Afghanistan, Response to the Soviet Invasion 2/80” folder. 41 “Entretien avec le Ministre François-Poncet (SG/80/51),” January 25, 1980, Nationaal Archief (NL- HaNA), Luns, J.M.A.H., 2.21.351, 2414-2; Brement to Brzezinski and Aaron, “Consultations in London at the NAC and the Christopher Talks on Afghanistan,” January 2, 1980, JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 1, “Afghanistan, 1/1-8/80” folder. 42 Blackwill to Brzezinski and Aaron, “Afghanistan and France,” January 7, 1980, JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 1, “Afghanistan, 1/1-8/80” folder. 43 Brzezinski to Christopher, “The French and Afghanistan,” January 16, 1980, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Box 20, “Alpha Channel (Miscellaneous) (1/80–3/80)” folder.

44 Blackwill to Brzezinski and Aaron, “Schmidt and the Afghanistan Crisis,” February 11, 1980, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Brzezinski Collection, Subject Files, Box 25, “Meetings – PRC, 6/2/1980” folder. 142

The Carter White House viewed Bonn as the “hub of the allied wheel.” With greater support from Schmidt, Blackwill believed, the Western Europeans and the

Japanese would be more willing to go along with US policy.45 But the difficulties in gaining additional support from the chancellor were obvious. Personal relations between

Carter and Schmidt remained sour, as the chancellor continued to feel marginalized by

Washington. Before the Carter administration established formal diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, for example, the president had given

Schmidt no advance notice. “It’s not a question of the tail wishing to wag the dog,” one

Schmidt advisor remarked in response, “but when the dog ignores the tail, the tail has to wag itself.”46

Afghanistan did not warrant much of a response in the eyes of many in Europe.

Whereas Carter saw a need to teach the Soviets a lesson and deter Soviet adventurism in the Third World, NATO’s European members had other priorities. To them, sharing a continent (and, in some cases, a border) with the Warsaw Pact meant that maintaining détente with the Soviet Union superseded all other concerns. When Carter sought support for sanctions on Moscow, he found next to none in the capitals of Europe—London being the notable exception. European strategy ultimately prioritized the carrot over the stick in dealing with Moscow at the beginning of the 1980s.

45 Blackwill to Brzezinski and Aaron, “Schmidt and the Afghanistan Crisis,” February 11, 1980, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Brzezinski Collection, Subject Files, Box 25, “Meetings – PRC, 6/2/1980” folder.

46 Fay Willey and Paul Martin, “Schmidt Goes His Own Way,” March 12, 1979, Newsweek. 143

“Solidarity Does Not Mean Uniformity”

Carter dispatched Vance to Western Europe in late February for consultations on

Afghanistan. At stop after stop, the Secretary of State heard the same complaints: the

Americans had not consulted adequately in developing their response to the Soviet invasion.47 Vance’s conversations made it clear just how much Carter’s tone had alarmed the Western Europeans. Summarizing Vance’s trip for Brzezinski, Blackwill did not mince words as he surveyed the damage:

The Europeans are terrified (I choose my words carefully) of a return to East-West confrontation in Europe. Such a prospect conjures up the carnage of two World Wars; the Berlin crises; the end of the practical achievements of 15 years of détente; in sum, the destruction of Western Europe’s peace and prosperity. They cannot face this possibility and would do almost anything, or not do almost anything, to prevent it.

As US-Soviet relations eroded, many of Washington’s allies expressed serious doubts as to whether the United States remained “a good bet over the long haul.” In the short term,

Blackwill concluded, the Western Europeans were “damn sure they have much to lose … if they rile the bear in Europe.”48

Vance appreciated the problems created by the administration’s handling of the sanctions. In lieu of genuine consultation, Carter and his advisors were seen to have made decisions, informed their allies, and then expected a prompt response in the affirmative—

47 Vance, Hard Choices, 393.

48 Blackwill to Brzezinski, “Vance’s Trip to Europe (And Beyond),” February 25, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-133-49-4-1-5. 144

what Schmidt dubbed the “me too” reaction.49 Even their most supportive European partner, the British, blamed the “raggedness” of NATO’s response on Washington’s failure to consult adequately before introducing its sanctions package.50 When Schmidt raised the issue with Vance, for instance, the latter acknowledged that this type of decision-making “must be prevented in the future.” But when Vance later reported on this exchange to Carter, the president scribbled two words in the margins: “don’t apologize.”51 Carter’s annotation reflected the prevailing mood in Washington. Why should the Americans apologize? US actions were all but taken for granted, while few other allied governments made any meaningful contributions of their own to respond to the Soviet incursion.

Afghanistan compounded earlier frustrations with—and doubts about—Carter’s leadership. Carter’s public calls for greater support from Washington’s partners chafed.

François-Poncet was quoted in The Washington Post remarking that NATO was “not, as far as we know, [an alliance] between a protector and those it protects.” Instead, the

French foreign minister insisted, it was an alliance of equals.52 Franco-American relations became so strained in the weeks after the Soviet invasion that Hans-Dietrich Genscher recommended that Giscard should try to intervene with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

49 Vance memorandum, February 25, 1980, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Box 20, “Alpha Channel (Miscellaneous) (1/80–3/80)” folder. 50 “Warnings, Action and Threats to Deter Soviet Moves,” n.d. [1980], TNA-UK, FCO 46/2180. 51 Vance memorandum, February 25, 1980, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Box 20, “Alpha Channel (Miscellaneous) (1/80–3/80)” folder.

52 Ronald Koven, “Europe’s Rift with U.S. Is Target of Soviet Drive,” April 18, 1980, The Washington Post. 145

regarding the US hostages, using Khomeini’s earlier refuge in France as a “persuasion- lever.” If the French could deliver progress on the hostage issue, Genscher suggested, some American gratitude in return might set the bilateral relationship on a better footing.53

Though few in Europe appreciated it, Carter did try to project an image of steady

US leadership in the world. His State of the Union Address for 1980 described his administration’s response to the Soviet invasion as firmly situated in the traditions of US foreign policy, linking it to the founding of NATO, the Korean War, the Berlin and Cuban crises, and the arms limitation talks of the 1970s. “In all these actions,” Carter asserted,

“we have maintained two commitments: to be ready to meet any challenge by Soviet military power, and to develop ways to resolve disputes and to keep the peace.”54 Carter’s

State of the Union Address in essence affirmed the basic principles of NATO’s double philosophy. But continuities like these went largely ignored. Both the tenor and substance of Carter’s State of the Union Address were widely seen as a departure from his preceding three years in office.55 The president now seemed to espouse a Manichean vision of the Cold War out of step with many of his counterparts in NATO.56

53 US Embassy Bonn to State, “Giscard to Tehran?,” February 19, 1980, JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 25, “German Federal Republic, 2/80” folder. 54 Carter remarks, “The State of the Union: Address Delivered Before a Joint Session of the Congress,” January 23, 1980, PPP: JC 1980–1981, vol. 1, 196. 55 Washington to External Affairs, “American Foreign Policy: The Persian Gulf,” February 6, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 14521, File 20-USA-1-3-MIDEAST.

56 Nancy Mitchell, “The Cold War and Jimmy Carter,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. 3, 87. 146

Schmidt fretted over the erosion of US power. To offset this distressing trend, the chancellor conceived a role for himself to supplement Washington’s leadership. British officials drew parallels between Schmidt’s current attitude on Afghanistan and his earlier approach to the economic crisis in 1978. When Schmidt had found Carter’s leadership wanting on economic issues, he had stepped in to create “a complementary pole of stability in Europe”: the European Monetary System.57 Now, on Afghanistan, Schmidt looked to fill what he deemed to be a similar void.58 He remarked to Lane Kirkland, the head of the AFL-CIO, that he would be happy to follow Washington’s lead if the administration could manage to “maintain a position for at least three weeks.” Kirkland responded with a suggestion that Bonn might take on a greater leadership role globally; but Schmidt flatly refused. “We are still too close to Auschwitz,” he explained.59

Schmidt walked a veritable tight-rope in the wake of the Afghan invasion, looking to balance Western solidarity with his commitment to détente and Ostpolitik.60

Increasingly, the two seemed to be at cross purposes with Carter’s firm reaction interpreted as a departure from the policy of détente. Schmidt placed a premium on

57 The creation of the European Monetary System and its impact on transatlantic relations are covered well in Duccio Basosi, “Principle or power? Jimmy Carter’s ambivalent endorsement of the European Monetary System, 1977–1979,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 2010): 6-18; Maria Eleonora Guasconi, “Europe and the EMS Challenge. Old and New Forms of European Integration in the 1970s,” in Crisis of Détente, 177-89. 58 Goodall to FCO, “German Policy Towards the East,” April 21, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/238. 59 Muskie, Kirkland et al. memorandum of conversation, “The Secretary’s Meeting Lane Kirkland, President, AFL-CIO,” July 24, 1980, NARA, RG 59, Subject Files of Edmund S. Muskie, Box 2, “Memoranda 1980-1981 2” folder.

60 National Foreign Assessment Center memorandum, “West Germany: Afghan Crisis Puts Schmidt on the Defensive,” February 7, 1980, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP85T00287R000100330001-6. 147

cohesion, which meant that for all his opposition to sanctions, his government proved one of the most supportive of Carter’s measures in the end. The Federal Republic, for instance, boycotted the Moscow games—an action matched only by Canada, Norway, and Turkey. To balance this support, Schmidt sought to style himself as the “peace candidate” in the lead-up to the West German elections in October. Making his planned trip to Moscow in July became all the more important in cultivating this desired political image.61 On the campaign trail, Schmidt defined a role for Bonn rooted in its position as an equal partner in the Atlantic Alliance—and as a mediating link between the two superpowers. In April, for instance, Schmidt called for a three-year moratorium on Soviet

TNF deployments, a proposal clearly calculated to burnish the chancellor’s image. His chosen venue, the SPD’s Party Congress in Hamburg, indicated his desire to be seen by voters as a “friend of arms control” in order to offset his support for sanctions in the

Afghan and Iran crises.62

Before Schmidt visited Washington in March, Brzezinski warned that the chancellor must be made to appreciate the disadvantages of “a segmented détente.” The

Soviet Union hoped that it might divide Western Europe from the United States, returning to a mainstay of Moscow’s Cold War diplomacy. Any European détente could not survive as far as Brzezinski was concerned; it would do nothing more than undermine the

61 National Foreign Assessment Center memorandum, “Chancellor Schmidt’s Visit to Moscow,” May 30, 1980, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP85T00287R000101200001-9.

62 Bonn to External Affairs, “Comments of Chancellor Schmidt on LRTNF,” April 22, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25122, File 27-4-NATO-1-16, Part 43. 148

Atlantic Alliance.63 Vance, for his part, assumed that Schmidt would lobby for greater clarity in Carter’s policy on the “‘ground rules’ of détente” and Western solidarity. To

Schmidt, Vance believed, burden-sharing meant that NATO allies should adopt complementary, but not necessarily identical, responses.64

Thinking similar to Schmidt’s could be found throughout the Alliance. François-

Poncet put it bluntly in one conversation with Joseph Luns: “solidarity does not mean uniformity.”65 Press coverage, however, obsessed over a transatlantic partnership divided.66 NATO’s response to the invasion provided ample material to fuel this kind of speculation. Gromyko travelled to Paris for bilateral talks in March, the first of a high- ranking Soviet official to the West since the invasion of Afghanistan. His visit was largely symbolic but it underscored the French (and the Soviet) commitment to continuing détente in Europe.67 European firms, like Creuset-Loire and Klöckner, signed major construction contracts to build factories in the Soviet Union. Worse yet, Creuset-Loire’s plans to build a steel mill in Novolipetsk picked up a contract previously given up by a

Japanese firm under pressure from Washington.

63 Brzezinski to Carter, “Your Meeting with Schmidt,” February 29, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-133-165-4-1-6. 64 Vance to Carter, “Visit of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt,” n.d. [1980], JCPL, RAC, NLC-133-165-4-2-5. 65 “Entretien avec le Ministre François-Poncet (SG/80/51),” January 25, 1980, NL-HaNA, Luns, J.M.A.H., 2.21.351, 2414-2. 66 See, for example, Bradley Graham, “NATO: Changing Alliance,” May 12, 1980, The Washington Post.

67 “Zum Besuch des Genossen A. A. Gromyko in Frankreich vom 23. bis 25. April 1980,” May 2, 1980, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (SAPMO), DY 30/IV 2/2.035 68. 149

Transatlantic disagreements, though very real, were by no means as dire as some portrayed them. Repeatedly, assessments from the Carter White House pointed to the common aspects of the Western position. After a briefing to the North Atlantic Council in

February, George Vest dismissed reports of “fractious” relations between the allies as misguided. There were, in reality, few substantive disagreements below the surface.68

Reports from Vance’s February trip concluded that Washington’s view of the Soviet threat was shared throughout the Alliance, as were the administration’s main objectives.69 The

State Department’s review of transatlantic relations, prepared for Edmund Muskie when he succeeded Vance as Secretary of State, described a healthy Alliance “motivated by common purpose and free of significant dissension.”70 Elsewhere, allied leaders came to similar conclusions. Luns, surveying NATO’s response to the invasion of Afghanistan, pointed to the consensus amongst the allies regarding the core objectives to be pursued in

East-West relations post-Afghanistan: all fifteen felt it necessary to keep an open dialogue with the Soviet Union.71

More, of course, could be done to reduce speculation about a transatlantic rift and ensure the NATO allies were on the same page. Luns devoted considerable attention to

68 BNATO to External Affairs, “Afghan: George Vests Briefing of Council 22Feb,” February 22, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 14157, File 20-USA-1-3, Part 34. 69 SCC summary of conclusions, “Iran/Afghanistan,” February 26, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-128-10-7-19-2. 70 Department of State briefing paper, “The State of U.S.-NATO Alliance Relations,” NARA, RG 59, Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Director, Records of Anthony Lake, Box 15, “TL Muskie Briefing Papers 5/1-9/80” folder.

71 Luns report, “Allied Consultations on the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan,” June 11, 1980, NATO, PO/80/52. 150

improving consultations. On a stop in Washington in May, he offered a pointed reminder to the administration about “the desirability of consultations taking place before decisions at the national level were taken.”72 Luns then devoted most of his Annual Political

Appraisal for 1980 to the matter, linking problems in transatlantic relations to the lack of meaningful consultations between the allies. All too often, NATO’s members “talk[ed] past one another.”73 In Washington, foreign policy reviews conducted by Carter’s team highlighted the need to preserve allied solidarity and “knock down the idea of a divisible détente.”74 Tellingly, the administration dubbed this view of détente “the Schmidt theory.”75

Despite the very real downturns in relations with Moscow, détente remained at the core of US strategy. Even Brzezinski, so often cast in the role of administration hardliner, saw a future for détente once the West’s credibility in defense had been reasserted.76

Carter and his advisors maintained, for example, that sanctions should not affect arms control talks between the two superpowers.77 Fears to the contrary abounded in 1980, but

Carter and his foreign policy team offered repeated assurances of Washington’s

72 Memorandum for the file, “Summary Record of meetings of the Secretary General during his visit to Canada and the United States, 1st–6th May, 1980 (DC/80/202),” June 12, 1980, NL-HaNA, Luns, J.M.A.H., 2.21.351, 2419. Emphasis in original. 73 Luns report, “Annual Political Appraisal 1980,” June 12, 1980, NATO, C-M(80)28. 74 “Foreign Policy: Coherence and Sense of Direction,” n.d. [1980], JCPL, RAC, NLC-133-218-4-2-6. 75 Brzezinski to Carter, “NSC Meeting,” March 18, 1980, JCPL, RAC, NLC-17-2-19-2-9. 76 Brzezinski to Carter, “NSC Weekly Report #134,” March 28, 1980, MTFA, http:// www.margaretthatcher.org/document/110910.

77 Watson to Muskie, “Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan: Updated Assessment and Policy Recommendations,” February 5, 1980, JCPL, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Box 20, “Alpha Channel (Miscellaneous) (1/80–3/80)” folder. 151

commitment to détente. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher gave an interview in early January, insisting that “it would not be right to pronounce the death of détente.”78

Before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in March, Vance told his audience that the United States desired “no return of the Cold War” or “of the indiscriminate confrontation of earlier times.” Vance spoke in familiar terms, arguing that the process of détente could not be separated from the need for deterrence.79 Edmund Muskie, his successor, reminded his colleagues at NATO that the administration’s objective was “not to dismantle the framework of East-West relations we have painstakingly built.” Instead, he argued, the Carter administration sought to invest in deterrence as “the only basis on which détente can be sustained.”80

Rhetoric alone was not the only sign that détente remained part of Washington’s approach. Throughout 1980, the Carter administration continued to participate in talks with the Soviet Union. The MBFR talks carried on. Muskie and Gromyko met for bilateral talks in Vienna. Preparatory talks began in September for the Madrid review conference of the CSCE. The two superpowers, after months of Soviet assertions that the

Dual-Track Decision had “destroyed the very basis for negotiations,” even opened

78 Henderson to FCO, “My Telno 68: U.S. Reactions to Afghanistan,” January 7, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/134. 79 Department of State press release, “Statement by the Honorable Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of State before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, March 3, 1980,” March 4, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 14157, File 20-USA-1-3, Part 34.

80 “Intervention by Secretary Muskie, Joint Session, NATO Defense Planning Committee, May 14, 1980,” NARA, RG 59, Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Director, Records of Anthony Lake, Box 15, “Secy Muskie Draft Statements for Europe/Vienna Trip 5/13-16/80” folder. 152

preliminary exchanges on TNF in October.81 French officials quickly assumed that arms control talks provided the Americans with a forum to maintain “discrete contacts with the

Soviet Union,” thereby forming the basis of the administration’s claims to still support détente.82

To be sure, little progress was made through these channels. The MBFR talks in

Vienna continued on much as they had since 1973, yielding no tangible results. At

Madrid, it was unclear if the actual review conference would even open after the preparatory phase. The clock had to be stopped at the end of the preparatory talks in order to reach a consensus that would make the formal conference possible. But the fact that these consultations took place at all mattered in and of itself. The United States, along with the rest of the Western allies, continued to invest in the institutions of the détente process.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Western reaction inflamed traditional grievances between the United States and Western Europe. In Washington, the Carter administration expressed frustration with Western Europe’s limited defense contributions.

On the other side of the Atlantic, officials worried about US policy toward the Soviet

Union. From a Canadian perspective, the divide between the Western Europeans and the

Americans mirrored the structure of the Harmel Report. The Western Europeans wished

81 Soviet non-paper, “Soviet “Non-Paper” (unofficial translation),” January 4, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25121, File 27-4-NATO-1-16, Part 42.

82 Hibbert to FCO, “My Telno 50: Afghanistan, The United States and Europe,” January 11, 1980, TNA- UK, PREM 19/135. 153

to reserve for themselves “a monopoly of detente,” and in so doing, leave the “monopoly of defense” to the United States.83 Carter arrived at the same conclusion. After one exchange where Schmidt suggested that both carrot and stick approaches were necessary to get the Kremlin to withdraw from Afghanistan, Carter replied that it was hardly helpful

“for the Europeans to expect us to provide the stick and for them to compete with one another about providing the biggest carrot.”84

Carter’s response to the Soviet invasion affirmed to European leaders that the president’s perspective could not always be reconciled with their own. In developing a response, Carter and his foreign policy team sought to project an image of firm US leadership. Doing so, they hoped, would redress longstanding concerns about

Washington’s handling of East-West relations. Carter hoped to demonstrate that the

United States—and his administration—provided strong and steady global leadership.

But the US reaction to the invasion often had the opposite effect. Seen from the other side of the Atlantic, it underscored the sense that Carter did not appreciate the subtleties of

East-West relations or Western Europe’s need to maintain positive relations with their

Eastern neighbors.

83 External Affairs to BNATO, “Afghanistan,” February 15, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25123, File 27-4- NATO-3-1-AFGHAN, Part 1.

84 Carter, White House Diary, 407. 154

The Soviet invasion often serves as a marker to periodize the Cold War, dividing the détente of the 1970s from the renewed superpower confrontation of the early 1980s.85

After Afghanistan, as this narrative so often goes, what remained of detente was solely

European. Certainly, in the days and months following the invasion, Western European leaders made it clear that détente remained their preferred strategy. Dries van Agt insisted that a policy of relaxing East-West tensions continued to be the best course to preserve peace, though the Dutch Minister-President lamented that recent events in Afghanistan had “dealt a severe blow to this policy.”86 Genscher concluded there was no viable alternative to détente.87 In Brussels, the Danish delegation at NATO warned that the allies should not “deviate from the course of the Alliance so well defined” in the Harmel

Report.88

But allied disagreements in the wake of the Soviet invasion did not revolve around whether or not détente should continue. Instead, NATO’s members debated how to balance and prioritize the two strands of their existing strategy—détente and deterrence

—going forward. Each of NATO’s members accepted the need to “avoid pushing the

85 See, for example, Bowker and Williams, Superpower Détente, 234-53; Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, revised edition, 27; Lawrence Freedman, A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2009), 94; Jonathan Haslam, Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 326; Hanhimäki, Schoenborn, and Zanchetta, Transatlantic Relations Since 1945, 96; Chris Tudda, Cold War Summits: A History, From Potsdam to Malta (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 151. 86 “Netherlands,” n.d. [February 1980], JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 2, “Afghanistan, Response to the Soviet Invasion 2/80” folder. 87 “Federal Republic of Germany,” n.d. [February 1980], JCPL, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 2, “Afghanistan, Response to the Soviet Invasion 2/80” folder.

88 Danish Delegation speaking notes, n.d. [1980], LAC, RG 25, Vol. 18540, File 20-1-1-6, Part 43. 155

Soviet leaders into a ‘bastion Russia’ mentality,” but felt it crucial to convey to Brezhnev and his advisors that East-West relations would be affected by the Politburo’s decision to invade Afghanistan. The Soviet leadership could not be left with the impression that relations would continue as though it were still “business as usual.”89

Enter Reagan

On November 4, 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidential election in a landslide for the

Republican Party. Reagan and his advisors prepared to enter the White House deeply pessimistic about the current state of affairs. On the campaign trail, Reagan had lamented the weakness and malaise that seemed so pervasive in the 1970s, and the events of 1980 only served to underscore this crisis of confidence. Every day, Walter Cronkite counted the days as the Iran Hostage Crisis continued. Problems seemed as plentiful as they were obvious. From the sidelines, the retired Vance worried publicly about “a disturbing fear in the land.”90

The United States, the new administration argued, needed to rebuild and restore its strength militarily and economically. Reagan ran against Carter’s weak leadership, appealing to what Canadian observers described as “nostalgia trips to ‘principles and ideals which made this nation what it is today.’”91 Reagan’s televised foreign policy

89 NAC summary record, Brussels, March 25, 1980, NATO, C-R(80)12. 90 Vance draft remarks, “Harvard Commencement Speech,” June 5, 1980, LOC, Anthony Lake Papers, Box 3, “Speech File – Vance, Cyrus R. 1980” folder.

91 Washington to External Affairs, “Reagan Foreign Policy,” June 6, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 14157, File 20-USA-1-3, Part 35. 156

address in October reminded viewers of Carter’s earlier campaign rhetoric. In 1976, as part of his bid for the White House, Carter had told voters that it was vital that

Washington be seen as a reliable ally committed to keeping the United States strong.

Reagan followed up with a simple question: “did he keep his promise?”92 If Reagan were to become president, he pledged to reverse this US decline.

Reagan’s transition team placed great emphasis on the need for strong and consistent US leadership at NATO. Allied support for US policies could only be counted on, one briefing argued, “when we were right, when we communicated clearly and consistently, and when we allowed sufficient time for them to arrange themselves politically.”93 Much of the new administration’s thinking about foreign policy was rooted in a near obsession with being the antithesis of Carter’s. But Reagan’s first priority would be to ameliorate economic conditions at home.

Reagan’s electoral victory raised hopes of a more consistent policy in

Washington.94 In capitals across Western Europe, the Republican’s election was seen as a chance to breathe new life into US foreign policy and into transatlantic relations. “A strong America taking a more responsible attitude,” Giscard d’Estaing intimated to

Thatcher, would be a refreshing change from the “fluctuations and uncertainties” of the

92 Reagan remarks, “A Strategy for Peace in the ‘80s,” October 19, 1980, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (RRPL), https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/Reference/10.19.80.html. 93 “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” December 10, 1980, Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), William Casey Papers, Box 300, “NATO” folder. Emphasis in original.

94 “Note of a Conversation over Dinner in the Federal Chancellor’s Residence at 2030 Hours on Sunday 16 November 1980,” November 17, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/471. 157

Carter years.95 Schmidt concurred, publicly expressing his delight that Washington would finally have consistent leadership again during a stop for informal talks with the president-elect. (“I guess he can’t resist the temptation,” the defeated Carter wrote in his diary.96)

The appointment of Alexander Haig as Secretary of State seemed an auspicious sign that Western European interests would be appreciated by the new administration in

Washington. Haig’s tenure as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) gave him considerable familiarity with key issues in transatlantic relations, such as the lengthy and complex diplomatic maneuvering around how to meet the Soviet military build-up. Haig had developed considerable trust amongst all of the allies, regardless of size or relative importance to NATO’s decision-making. When Haig retired in June 1979, Sir John

Killick took great pains to emphasize the general’s popularity in Brussels, noting that he was commonly referred to as “the best SACEUR we’ve had” (a title shared with the first man to the hold the position, Dwight D. Eisenhower). Killick recommended that the

Thatcher government should try and cultivate Haig as a champion for increased cohesion within the Alliance.97

The Reagan administration quickly gained a reputation for bombast. Carter’s campaign had painted Reagan as a reckless warmonger bent on confrontation with the

95 “Telephone Conversation with President Giscard,” November 14, 1980, TNA-UK, PREM 19/970. 96 Carter, White House Diary, 485.

97 Killick to Carrington, “The Departure of General Alexander M. Haig Jr.,” July 27, 1979, TNA-UK, FCO 46/1947. 158

Soviet Union.98 Reagan’s rhetoric once in office cemented this impression of the new president. In his first presidential press conference, recalling the anti-détente tenor of his

1976 campaign, Reagan referred to détente as a “one-way street” which had enabled the

Soviet Union to improve its global position. Moscow, he famously remarked, reserved

“the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat” in order to ensure the spread of communism.99 These comments became shorthand for the hardline, anti-Soviet approach so often associated with Reagan’s first term.100

Prominent critics of détente could be found throughout the new administration with many plucked from the ranks of the Committee on the Present Danger. Eugene

Rostow became the first director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Jeane

Kirkpatrick went to the United Nations, and Richard Allen to the post of National

Security Advisor. Jackson’s old foreign policy aide Richard Perle joined the staff in the newly-created role of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs.101

Newly-minted NSC staffer Richard Pipes, on leave from his position as a professor of

Russian history at Harvard, made a splash in March when he proclaimed that détente no

98 Michael W. Flamm, “The Reagan Presidency and Foreign Policy: Controversies and Legacies,” in Debating the Reagan Presidency, ed. John Ehrman and Michael W. Flamm (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 101. 99 Reagan news conference, January 29, 1981, PPP: Ronald Reagan (RR) 1981 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1982), 57. 100 “Excerpts From an Interview With Walter Cronkite of CBS News,” March 3, 1981, PPP: RR 1981, 193; “Interview With Western European Television Correspondents on the President’s Trip to Europe,” 1 Jun. 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1983), 717.

101 Justin Vaïsse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 162-4. 159

longer existed.102 Not all of these so-called ‘hardliners,’ however, had quite the clout that outsiders feared. Pipes, for instance, attended just one NSC meeting in all of 1981.103

Even Alexander Haig, often seen as the administration’s moderate (and Atlanticist) voice, offered a starkly pessimistic vision of US-Soviet relations. In his first congressional testimony, he painted a picture of a world divided in two and spoke of a Soviet “hit list” in Central America.104

Reagan’s election contributed to deepening fears about the international climate.

As one Canadian peace activist put it, the Reagan presidency was “good for [both] the militarists and the peaceniks.”105 Shortly after Reagan’s election, the Bulletin of the

Atomic Scientists shaved three minutes off of its Doomsday Clock, making it four minutes to midnight, the worst at any point since 1959. Both superpowers, the announcement ominously noted, now considered nuclear war to be “winnable.”106 On

April 4, some 15,000 West Germans marched in Bonn to demonstrate against the deployments called for in the Dual-Track Decision.107

Public fears about the rising prospect of nuclear war and the emergence of an arms race between the superpowers were by no means new. The campaigns against the

102 “U.S. Repudiates a Hard-Line Aide,” March 19, 1981, The New York Times. 103 Richard Pipes, Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 145. 104 “Major News in Summary; Haig Diagrams a One-on-One Global Strategy,” March 22, 1981, The New York Times. 105 Ernie Regehr, quoted in Greg Donaghy, “The “Ghost of Peace”: Pierre Trudeau’s Search for Peace, 1982-84,” Peace Research, Vol. 39, Nos. 1–2 (2007): 40. 106 Bernard T. Feld, “The hands move closer to midnight,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan. 1981): 1.

107 “Europeans Demonstrate Against NATO Missiles,” April 5, 1981, The New York Times. 160

neutron bomb in 1977-1978 indicated the growth of public anxiety throughout the West, as did the proliferation of books and films whose plots revolved around the bomb.

NATO’s Dual-Track Decision gave greater urgency to calls for disarmament, but

Reagan’s election encouraged much of the vocal opposition on display in the early 1980s.

Though it was NATO’s decision, the United States played the starring role in the

Dual-Track Decision. The missiles to be delivered to Western Europe were US missiles, and it was Washington who needed to negotiate with the Soviet Union. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, critics and commentators tended to portray the decision as a US initiative foisted upon its weaker Western European allies. Earlier European concerns about theater balance, such as Schmidt’s warnings at the International Institute for

Strategic Studies, went ignored. Seeing modernization as a US enterprise dovetailed neatly with existing assumptions about the United States’ role in NATO as its sole superpower and putative leader. For those in the East, it also provided a convenient means of ratcheting up the pressure on Washington.

Questions about Reagan’s willingness to negotiate with the Soviet Union mattered in this context. NATO’s 1979 decision left the president and his foreign policy team little room for maneuver. If they hoped to alter the decision, there would be few viable options.108 The Reagan administration looked for ways to extricate itself from what one briefing paper termed the “political quagmire” resulting from Carter’s arms control

108 Washington to External Affairs, “TNF Arms Control,” November 14, 1980, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25122, File 27-4-NATO-1-16, Part 47. 161

policies and the steady deterioration of NATO’s strategic capabilities.109 Over the administration’s first months, they repeatedly affirmed their plans to adhere to both components of the Dual-Track Decision. But, the question remained: when would the new administration actually start negotiating? So long as the Reagan White House was completing a comprehensive review of US arms control policy, the timing of any negotiations with Moscow remained up in the air.110 Without an active dialogue underway, many wondered whether the president’s commitment to negotiating was genuine.

Washington’s transatlantic partners saw an administration far more pessimistic about relations with the Soviet Union than its predecessor. Hans-Georg Wieck, the West

German permanent representative to NATO, saw a new “trend toward black-and-white painting.”111 In Central America, the administration showed a propensity for seeing the hand of the Soviet Union (or its supposed proxy, Cuba) behind any and all negative developments. “Our allies are all pleased with the early and detailed consultations,”

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger

109 Ermarth paper, “TNF and Arms Control,” July 1981, RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90556, Folder “NATO - TNF - Arms Control - State Conference (1).” 110 “Text of Report by D/AD (AC&D), P&P Division on SCG Meeting, 31 March 1981,” April 3, 1981, NATO, IMSM-0160-81.

111 Wieck to Auswärtiges Amt, “Außen- und sicherheitspolitische Tendenzen in der Allianz,” March 24, 1981, Akten zurAuswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAPD) 1981 I (München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2012), doc. 88. 162

quipped in one meeting with Haig, “even though they wish it were on a subject other than

El Salvador.”112

Most in the Reagan White House agreed that arms control talks with the Soviet

Union were unlikely to yield results until the missiles were deployed in 1983.113 The value of negotiations, however, could not be decoupled from larger transatlantic political concerns. Washington could not preserve sufficient public support for the Euromissile deployments without demonstrating a genuine commitment to arms control. The fragile nature of the Dual-Track Decision was obvious to observers in both East and West. One

US intelligence assessment from January 1980 had warned that public opposition to the decision had the potential to do considerable and long-lasting damage to NATO. Even if the deployments did go ahead as planned in 1983, disagreements resulting from the implementation of the Dual-Track Decision “could contain the seeds of a future rupture potentially more serious than the French withdrawal from NATO in the late 1960s.”114

Simply put, the deployment of the missiles themselves was the least of the issues on the line.

Negotiating in earnest with the Soviet Union, one internal assessment concluded, would be vital to address the growing domestic opposition in the Federal Republic, prevent a rift opening up between Washington and Bonn, and avoid a larger split within

112 Eagleburger to Haig, “European Trip on El Salvador: Overview,” February 20, 1981, RRPL, Executive Secretariat NSC, NSC Meeting Files, Box 14, “Germany, FRG 1/20/81-6/30/81 (3)” folder. 113 Rostow to Casey, “Reflections on My Trip to Brussels, SHAPE, Bonn, and London, September 24, to October 13, 1981,” October 26, 1981, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP83M00914R002100110083-0.

114 “The Dutch and TNF: An Autopsy,” January 17, 1980, JCPL, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box 121, “SCM 108 – Mini-SCC – TNF (Theater Nuclear Forces) 1/21/80” folder. 163

NATO over East-West questions.115 Within the Alliance, Washington’s partners largely concluded that any administration interest in negotiating boiled down to precisely these concerns. Reagan’s commitment to arms control talks, they felt, was nothing more than a sop to keep the allies happy. Nicholas Henderson, the British Ambassador in Washington, figured the Reagan arms control policy was motivated by a desire to “placate the allies.”116

When NATO’s foreign ministers met in Rome in May, Haig’s central objective was to convince Washington’s partners that Reagan was indeed willing to negotiate with the Soviets.117 After an attempt was made on Reagan’s life on March 30, the president had penned a handwritten letter to Brezhnev while on bed rest. In it, he appealed to the

General Secretary to reduce tensions between the two superpowers. He referred to his decision to reverse Carter’s grain embargo as a possible opening that might allow

Moscow and Washington to develop “the meaningful and constructive dialogue which will assist us in fulfilling our joint obligation to lasting peace.”118

Haig returned from the Rome ministerial confident he had convinced

Washington’s partners of the administration’s genuine commitment to talks with the

Soviets. Reagan’s handwritten letter to Brezhnev, the president concluded, had been the

115 Ermarth paper, “TNF and Arms Control,” July 1981, RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90556, “NATO - TNF - Arms Control - State Conference (1)” folder. 116 Henderson to FCO, “US Foreign Policy,” March 21, 1981, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1152. 117 Rome to Haig, “Text of Secretary Haig’s Press Conference at the End of the NAC Meeting,” May 5, 1981, RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 91316, “NATO-NAC 5/3/81-5/5/81 (Rome) (May 1981) (1)” folder.

118 Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 273. 164

“clincher.”119 Upon Haig’s return from Rome, Reagan assured reporters that the meeting had assuaged allied concerns about the administration’s approach to the Soviet Union.120

But speculation that a transatlantic rift was brewing continued apace. Mere weeks after

NATO’s foreign ministers met in Rome, former National Security Advisor McGeorge

Bundy warned that the United States was “headed for serious trouble that we have had before” about the nuclear guarantee at the heart of NATO.121 The contentious ERW issue resurfaced, as Reagan decided to assemble the weapon. Doing so, The Washington Post warned, handed easy propaganda over to the European left and to the Soviet Union and would make it all the more difficult to deploy the Euromissiles.122 Charles Wick, the head of the United States Information Communication Agency (USICA), recommended a major speech to stop the Soviet Union’s “propaganda harvest” from the issue.123

Public concern about the administration’s intentions showed no signs of abating.

Reagan fanned the flames, remarking to the press in October that he could envision a situation “where you could have the exchange of tactical weapons against troops in the field without it bringing either one of the major powers to pushing the button.”124 The president, it seemed, had endorsed the possibility of a limited nuclear war. Walter

119 Reagan diary entry, May 5, 1981, Reagan Diaries, vol. 1, 37. 120 Reagan remarks, “Remarks on the Meeting Between Secretary of State Haig and the NATO Foreign Ministers,” May 6, 1981, PPP: RR 1981, 408. 121 McGeorge Bundy, “Instead of Missiles,” May 21, 1981, The New York Times. 122 “The New Neutron Bomb Crisis,” August 11, 1981, The Washington Post. 123 Wick to Gergen, “Blunting Soviet Charges Related to Neutron Weapons,” August 13, 1981, RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9422, “Nuclear [Freeze] (2 of 8)” folder.

124 Reagan remarks, “Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at a Working Luncheon with Out-of- Town Editors,” October 16, 1981, PPP: RR 1981, 956-7. 165

Mondale, already the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate for 1984, attacked the president for the considerable damage that these comments would undoubtedly cause in Western Europe.125 Reagan’s ambassador in Bonn, Arthur Burns, concurred. He urged the White House to reverse course and release a public statement addressing growing fears that a nuclear war—limited or otherwise—might break out in Europe.126

Hundreds of thousands of Western Europeans took to the streets in capitals across the continent. Anti-nuclear demonstrations were held throughout the autumn of 1981 with rallies in Amsterdam, Brussels, Bonn, Copenhagen, London, Oslo, Paris, and Rome. At one rally at Comiso, the Sicilian base slated to receive 112 cruise missiles, the number of protestors exceeded the town’s entire population.127 Egon Bahr described a Europe which increasingly stood apart from the two superpowers. Citizens on both sides of the Iron

Curtain, he argued, now wondered “who will protect us from our protectors?”128 On the other side of the Atlantic, Canadians began their own ‘refuse the cruise’ campaign in the

125 USINFO to State, “Media Reaction – Press Play in the Wake of President Reagan’s Statement on Limited Nuclear War,” October 21, 1981, RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90556, “NATO – Meetings – Nuclear War” folder. 126 Kraemer’s marginalia in response: “wow!” Burns to State, “Press Guidance on President Reagan’s Comments on Nuclear War and Europe,” October 20, 1981, RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90556, “NATO – Meetings – Nuclear War” folder. 127 “Italian opposition grows to Comiso cruise base,” The Nuclear Free Press, Summer 1982, City of Toronto Archives, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms fonds, Box 384542, “Publications by other organizations - 1982-1988” folder.

128 “Egon’s Quotes,” n.d. [September 1981], RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90100, “NATO-Countries- FRG 9/18/81-9/24/81” folder. 166

spring of 1982 after news leaked that the Trudeau government might agree to cruise missile tests over Canadian territory.129

For the Soviet Union and its partners in the Warsaw Pact, the peace movement presented an exciting chance to derail the deployment of missiles to Western Europe.

Buoyed by the perceived successes of the neutron bomb campaign, governments east of the Iron Curtain invested considerable resources into influencing Western public opinion.130 Opposition to NATO’s nuclear policies, they again hoped, could be used to drive a wedge into the Alliance and separate Western Europe from the United States.

Soviet press statements and proposals accordingly appealed to the desire to see détente’s continuation. They insisted that arms control negotiations should not be held hostage to other developments in East-West relations like the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Moscow’s “declaratory diplomacy,” as NATO officials dubbed it, championed lofty arms control and disarmament proposals in the hopes of burnishing the East’s peace credentials.131 Brezhnev offered a moratorium on new Soviet SS-20 deployments in early

129 See, for one example, Flyer, Refuse the Cruise International Day of Protest, MUL, Murray Thompson fonds, Box 5, “Refuse the Cruise Protest + Freeze” folder; Susan Colbourn, “‘Cruising Toward Nuclear Danger’: Canadian Anti-Nuclear Activism, Pierre Trudeau’s Peace Mission, and the Transatlantic Partnership,” Cold War History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2018): 19-36. 130 “Referat des Genossen H. Axen, Beratung der Sekretäre für ideologische und internationale Fragen der kommunistischen und Arbeiterparteien sozialistischer Lander, 3. und 4. November 1981 in Moskau,” November 3, 1981, SAPMO, DY 30/IV 2/2.035 24; Michael Ploetz, “NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organisation at the Time of the Euromissile Crisis, 1975 to 1985,” in A History of NATO – The First Fifty Years, Vol. 2, ed. Gustav Schmidt (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001), 218.

131 “The Situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” April 13, 1982, NATO, C-M(82)20. 167

1981, a proposal rejected by NATO as nothing more than an attempt to codify the existing imbalances that favored the Soviet Union.132

The public debates now taking place over nuclear weapons were seen as “a public information task of major proportions” for the Atlantic Alliance. As the peace movement gained momentum and transcended national borders, NATO’s members increasingly appreciated the need for a more cohesive and coordinated public relations effort. To that end, they ramped up consultations and circulated briefings surveying the activities of the anti-nuclear movement.133 NATO relied on mechanisms already created for consultations on the Dual-Track Decision’s implementation, such as the Special Consultative Group

(SCG). West German disarmament commissioner Fred Ruth pushed for a meeting between representatives from Belgium, the Federal Republic, Italy, and the United

Kingdom—the countries which had agreed to base the Euromissiles—and their US counterparts to coordinate the “public handling” of the Dual-Track Decision.134 (The

Belgian government had adopted a resolution in September 1980, promising to review the progress made in US-Soviet talks every six months and to deploy the missiles, either partially or fully, as necessary.135) As they had throughout the 1970s, the Western allies

132 Luns to permanent representatives, “Draft Public Talking Points for Statements on Brezhnev’s LRTNF Moratorium Proposal,” March 26, 1981, NATO, PO/81/33. 133 Luns to permanent representatives, “NATO’s Nuclear Posture and Public Policy,” September 29, 1981, NATO, PO/81/109. 134 “SCG Afternoon Session – 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.,” n.d. [September 1981], RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90103, “NATO SCG 09/14/1981-09/16/1981 1 of 3” folder.

135 Andrée Gérard, “La Dynamique du Mouvement de Paix in Belgique Francophone,” Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP, Vol. 1984/28, No. 1053-1054 (October 1984): 16. 168

again saw the consultative process as a way to make clear to their publics that they were committed to negotiating with the East. Consultations at the Special Consultative Group, for instance, could be used as “visible evidence for the public” that NATO cared about reaching an agreement with the Soviet Union.136

On November 18, Reagan finally unveiled his administration’s approach to the upcoming intermediate-range nuclear force (INF) talks. (The term INF replaced the earlier TNF as language which would discourage the negotiations from being seen as a strictly regional question.137) Speaking before the National Press Club in a mid-day speech, he opened by reading aloud from his April letter to Brezhnev. Reagan then turned to outline his “program for preserving peace in Europe” identifying three overarching principles that had governed US relations with its NATO partners since 1949: unity, deterrence, and dialogue. Adhering to these concepts, Reagan argued, would continue to preserve peace as it had for the preceding three decades. Having situated the INF talks in a longer trajectory, both of his administration’s policies toward the Soviet Union and the

US commitment to European security, Reagan introduced the US negotiating position for the upcoming INF talks in Geneva. It was simple: the United States would cancel the deployment of Pershing IIs and ground-launched cruise missiles if the Soviet Union dismantled its SS-4s, SS-5s, and SS-20s.138

136 “Text of Report by D/AD (AC&D), P&P Division on SCG Meeting, 31 March 1981,” April 3, 1981, NATO, IMSM-0160-81. 137 Huitfeldt to Military Committee, “DCMC Report on Meeting of the Special Consultative Group (SCG),” November 24, 1981, NATO, IMSM-0590-81.

138 Reagan remarks, National Press Club, Washington, DC, November 18, 1981, PPP: RR 1981, 1064-5. 169

The zero option, as the proposal was known, offered zero US deployments in exchange for zero Soviet missiles. In Washington, members of the administration had debated the proposal’s merits for months. Haig saw it as nothing more than a public relations stunt. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, however, saw an opportunity to use the Dual-Track Decision’s structure to Washington’s advantage. As Weinberger conceived of it, the zero option could address some of the obstacles to the INF deployments. The United States must be seen as committed to serious negotiations and any negotiations must appear productive, the Secretary of Defense argued, for the modernization prong to go forward. Moreover, Washington could not accept a “cosmetic agreement” with the Soviet Union which might undercut support for deployment.139 The zero option proposal ticked all the boxes. It was straightforward and easily explained to the public, not bogged down in the technical details and jargon of nuclear bargaining.140

Going for zero served a clear political purpose. It would, as the Special

Consultative Group described the proposal, “put the Soviets on the defensive and have a

139 “National Security Council Meeting,” October 13, 1981, The Reagan Files, National Security Council, http://reaganfiles.com/19811013-nsc-22.pdf; Marilena Gala, “The Euromissile Crisis and the Centrality of the ‘Zero Option’,” in The Euromissile Crisis, 161.

140 Burns to Haig, “ACDA Rostow’s Discussion on Arms Control Aspects of TNF/SALT/Strategic Weapons with FRG Foreign Minister Genscher,” October 13, 1981, RRPL, Executive Secretariat NSC, NSC Meeting File, Box 14, “Germany, FRG 9/1/81-12/31/81 (2)” folder. 170

salutary effect on European public opinion.”141 The proposal itself riffed on suggestions previously made at NATO by the Dutch, the Danes, and the Norwegians.142

Reagan’s remarks projected his desired image as a trustworthy statesman, capable of preserving peace. Perhaps for the first time since taking office in January, Reagan demonstrated clearly that he—or his foreign policy team—understood the concerns mounting across the Alliance that a nuclear war might break out between the superpowers.143 Even the timing of his speech indicated its purpose. With a mid-day address, Reagan’s remarks were timed to make evening news broadcasts in Europe.144

Among allied policymakers, Reagan’s speech was largely met with relief. The

Italian Socialists arranged rallies in cities and towns across the country in support of the

US negotiating position.145 If Reagan had given this speech earlier, Schmidt remarked, public fears about a growing divide between the United States and Western Europe would have never developed in the first place.146 Some at NATO, however, expressed reservations about the implications of the zero option proposal. British analysts pointed to

141 Huitfeldt to Military Committee, “DCMC Report on Meeting of the Special Consultative Group (SCG),” November 24, 1981, NATO, IMSM-0590-81. 142 UKDELNATO to FCO, “TNF Modernisation,” November 6, 1979, TNA-UK, FCO 28/3695; Laurence to FCO, “NATO Ministerial Meeting, Arms Control: SALT/TNF/and MBFR,” June 26, 1980, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4690; Moberly to Scott, “TNF Modernisation and Arms Control,” July 24, 1980, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4690. 143 “A Sober Custodian, Not a Cowboy,” November 19, 1981, The New York Times. 144 Marc A. Genest, Negotiating in the Public Eye: The Impact of the Press on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Negotiations (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 1. 145 Lynn E. Davis, “A Political Strategy for Successful Deployment of NATO’s Theater Nuclear Forces,” January 28, 1982, British Library of Political and Economic Science (LSE), END 19/24, folder 1 of 3.

146 Woessner to Haig, “Schmidt on US-European Relations and Other Political Topics,” December 8, 1981, RRPL, Executive Secretariat NSC, Meeting File, Box 14, “Germany, FRG 9/1/81-12/31/81 (3)” folder. 171

the clear disconnect between NATO’s existing strategy of flexible response and an approach to arms control which would erase the weapons linking allied strategic forces to its conventional capabilities. If the zero option were achieved, they worried that it might actually undercut the US nuclear guarantee to Europe and make a limited war on the continent more likely.147

Moscow quickly dismissed the zero option, just as both Haig and Weinberger had predicted. After all, the Soviet Union would be the only side forced to actually remove any weapons under the US proposal. Warsaw Pact officials viewed it as nothing more than a ploy to keep the Western Europeans happy.148

Public fears of nuclear war did not suddenly evaporate thanks to Reagan’s zero option proposal. 50% of respondents in one Time poll in December, for instance, chalked

Reagan’s remarks up to “political or propaganda reasons.”149 Reagan and his administration, in short, had an image problem. Given the president’s bombastic rhetoric, be it his pessimistic assessments of détente’s value or his off-the-cuff remarks about possible nuclear exchanges, many found it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt.

147 “Aufzeichnung des Vortragenden Legationsrats I. Klasse Hofmann,” February 23, 1982, AAPD 1982 I (München: Oldenbourg, 2013), doc. 62. 148 “Information: über die Ergebnisse der sowjetische-amerikanischen Verhandlungen über die Begrenzung der nuklearen Rüstungen in Europa vom 30. November bis 17. Dezember 1981 in Genf,” January 4, 1982, SAPMO, DY 30/IV 2/2.035 156.

149 Fischer to Haig, “Addressing Nuclear Issues,” April 2, 1982, RRPL, Dennis C. Blair Files, RAC Box 4, “Public Diplomacy 1982 (April 1982)” folder. 172

He gained a public reputation for belligerence, leading critics to dub him “a nuclear cowboy” and the “Pied Piper of Armageddon.”150

The Sky is Falling

Events in Poland strained East-West relations even further. On December 13, 1981,

General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of martial law. The Polish leader’s announcement caught the West by surprise. Ten days later, in a Christmas address to the

American people, Reagan denounced the imposition of martial law as a violent response to “the stirrings of liberty” masterminded by the Soviet Union. Martial law in Poland was marked by “brute force, killing, mass arrests, and the setting up of concentration camps,” as Reagan described it to his listeners.151 Across the Atlantic, the reaction was far more muted. French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson maintained that the issue was an internal one; his British counterpart, Lord Carrington, urged that the Helsinki Final Act’s provisions on non-intervention must be respected.152

The introduction of martial law in Poland marked the culmination of over a year of uncertainty about what might occur in the country. A series of workers’ strikes had broken out along Poland’s Baltic coast in the summer of 1980 with demonstrations at shipyards, such as Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyards. There, in September 1980, a trade union

150 Helen Broinowski Caldicott, A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 307. 151 Reagan remarks, “Address to the Nation About Christmas and the Situation in Poland,” December 23, 1981, PPP: RR 1981, 1186.

152 Gregory F. Domber, “Transatlantic Relations, Human Rights, and Power Politics,” in Perforating the Iron Curtain, 197. 173

named Solidarność was established under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. Both the workers’ strikes and the emergence of an independent labor union emerged out of extreme dissatisfaction with the day-to-day economic conditions of Polish citizens. A grassroots movement like this, however, posed a clear challenge to the existing political system.153 After the strikes began, the Western allies monitored the events unfolding in

Poland fearful that Moscow might intervene directly to shore up the position of the ruling

Polish United Workers’ Party.154 Allied leaders worried about a possible Soviet intervention akin to the Warsaw Pact’s earlier interventions in Hungary and

Czechoslovakia. At the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial session in December 1980, the final communiqué made clear that détente would “not survive if the Soviet Union were again to violate the basic rights of any state,” as it had in Afghanistan and NATO members feared it might in Poland.155

NATO accordingly began to develop contingency plans in a series of meetings starting in December 1980, building on the talks already underway between the Big Four.

These consultations prepared a menu of possible options should the Soviet Union or the

Warsaw Pact as a whole intervene militarily in Poland. Potential responses ranged from

153 Andrzej Paczowski and Malcolm Byrne, “The Polish Crisis: Internal and International Dimensions,” in From Solidarity to Martial Law: The Polish Crisis of 1980–1981: A Documentary History, ed. Andrzej Paczowski and Malcolm Byrne (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007), 6-8. 154 Such fears were reasonable: the Politburo made preparations for the use of Soviet forces in Poland in August 1980. “CPSU CC Politburo Commission Order to Enhance Readiness of Military Units for Possible Use in Poland,” August 28, 1980 in From Solidarity to Martial Law, 64-65. For details on the Soviet deliberations regarding the possible use of force in Poland, see Mark Kramer, “‘In Case Military Assistance is Provided to Poland:’ Soviet Preparations for Military Contingencies, August 1980,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin No. 11 (Winter 1998): 102-9.

155 Press communiqué, “Final Communique – NAC Meeting in Ministerial Session in Brussels,” December 12, 1980, NATO, M-2(80)28. 174

“an intensive campaign of public condemnation” to a slew of measures designed to curb

East-West economic relations.156 But the contingency plans did not reach any specific conclusions; more often than not, “semantics” acted as a substitute for real planning.157

Part of the reluctance stemmed from a sense of uncertainty about what it all meant. It was increasingly obvious to Western observers that socialism was coming apart at the seams:

Poland’s acute economic difficulties were but the latest in a string of shortages and financial woes. What to do about it, however, was a crucial part of the tensions. Should they exploit the economic weakness, hoping to weaken Moscow’s position? Could they use their own economic strength to achieve change in the Soviet Union and throughout

Eastern Europe?

NATO’s contingency planning exercises made it clear that economic sanctions would be the most contentious part of any Western response.158 Assessments done before

Carter left office warned that if the United States pushed too hard, they would simply turn an East-West problem into a West-West one, much like the response to Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan.159 Once the Reagan team entered office, they came to similar conclusions. Any economic sanctions would only be useful if they received broad support

156 Petrignani to Permanent Representatives, “Poland,” December 23, 1980, NATO, PO/80/133. 157 External Affairs to BNATO, “Poland: Contingency Planning,” June 23, 1981, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 19376, File 20-1-1-6, Part 50. 158 “Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirektors Fischer,” January 16, 1981, AAPD 1981 I, doc. 8.

159 Brewster to Muskie, “Poland: Alliance Military Measures,” January 2, 1981, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/1-FY2013/F-2011-01527/ DOC_0C17669778/C17669778.pdf. 175

within the Alliance, but the administration assumed sanctions would enjoy little support unless the Warsaw Pact invaded Poland outright.160

The initial Western reaction to the introduction of martial law on December 13,

1981, was subdued. As part of a NATO meeting a mere two days after Jaruzelski’s announcement, the allies did not release a statement on Poland and Haig did not even attend the meeting. In Washington, a more active response began to coalesce. Information officials in the administration, like Charles Wick and David Gergen, held meetings with prominent representatives from the media and think-tanks to consider the tone and substance of the US response. At one meeting on December 21, attended by

Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz, the president of the Heritage Foundation Ed Feulner, and others sympathetic to the administration, participants underscored the need “to more forcefully symbolize American support for the Polish people.”161 The next day, when the

NSC gathered to discuss the situation in Poland, Reagan went so far as to suggest that the administration declare the Helsinki Final Act to be “null and void.” Like the Soviet

Union’s war in Afghanistan, he saw the introduction of martial law as a direct violation of the 1975 agreement. From the president’s perspective the Final Act had little significance if it did not restrain Soviet behavior. What was the point in having an agreement if

Moscow only proceeded to violate it? Haig balked at the idea of abandoning the Final

160 “Poland: Possible Actions Against the USSR,” December 21, 1981, RRPL, Paula Dobriansky Files, Box 3, “Poland Crisis Management [1981-1982]” folder.

161 Wick, Robinson et al. memorandum of conversation, “U.S. Response to Polish Crisis,” December 21, 1981, RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9422, “Poland” folder. 176

Act. “Europe,” he insisted, “will go bonkers if we do that.”162 As Reagan and his advisors debated how to best to respond, their internal discussions emphasized the need to avoid repeating the mistakes made by the Carter administration over Afghanistan. NATO could not afford the kind of split that had happened in 1980.163 But the administration’s response ended up doing exactly that.

On December 29, Reagan announced a series of restrictions on the Soviet Union over Poland. The United States would suspend Aeroflot service, defer negotiations on a new long-term grain agreement and a maritime agreement, and review any and all exchange programs between the United States and the Soviet Union (in the end, many such exchanges continued).164 Throughout the Alliance, the administration’s measures chafed. The White House described the sanctions as the logical culmination of NATO’s earlier contingency plans, arguing that the Alliance had “a clear understanding that Soviet action short of an actual military intervention would be met by counter-action.” But the question was far from resolved: did Jaruzelski’s declaration of martial law constitute a

Soviet intervention in Poland? Or was it a purely Polish response to the crisis? US

162 NSC meeting, “Poland,” December 22, 1981, National Security Meeting Files, Box 91283. 163 “Poland: Possible Actions Against the USSR,” December 21, 1981, RRPL, Paula Dobriansky Files, Box 3, “Poland Crisis Management [1981-1982]” folder; “U.S./Allied Responses to Developments in Poland,” December 20, 1981, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP84B00049R000200320016-3.

164 “Statement on U.S. Measures Taken Against the Soviet Union Concerning its Involvement in Poland,” December 29, 1981, PPP: RR 1981, 1209. 177

officials dismissed any suggestion that Jaruzelski’s decision did not constitute a Soviet intervention as “ridiculous and untenable.”165

Of the US measures, the most contentious was a restriction on the export of oil and gas technologies to the Soviet Union. These sanctions posed a direct threat to

Western firms’ participation in the construction of a natural gas pipeline, a project under contract since 1980 to connect Soviet natural gas reserves in Siberia with Western

European markets.166 Building the pipeline required advanced extraction material to gain access to the deposits on the Yamal peninsula, far north of the Arctic Circle. The structure of the agreement signed between the Europeans and the Soviet Union created yet further difficulties. The agreement itself indicated that the compressors and turbines required of the project would be delivered from France, the Federal Republic, Italy, and the United

Kingdom. In reality, only US firms—Caterpillar, Dresser, and General Electric—had licenses for these technologies.167

The December 29 measures were far from the first US attempt to stop the pipeline project. It seemed a dangerous initiative which would only increase Western Europe’s vulnerabilities vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Caspar Weinberger insisted it would give the

165 Eagleburger to Burns, “Response to [Redacted] on President’s Actions Regarding Poland,” December 30, 1981, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/ foiadocs/5b98.PDF. 166 The project was known by a number of different names: the Urengoi Pipeline, the Urengoi-Uzhgorod pipeline, the Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline and the Yamal pipeline. Most commonly in the West, it was referred to as the Siberian pipeline.

167 Ksenia Demidova, “The Deal of the Century: The Reagan Administration and the Soviet Pipeline,” in European Integration and the Atlantic Community in the 1980s, ed. Kiran Klaus Patel and Kenneth Weisbrode (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 67. 178

Soviet Union an influx of much-needed hard currency and increase Western Europe’s dependence on the East. Throughout the summer of 1981, the Reagan administration had explored options to prevent its construction. At the G-7 Summit in Montebello, Quebec in

July, the United States pushed for studies to strengthen export controls, reduce the West’s vulnerabilities caused by East-West trade, and consider the use of sanctions against the

East.168 The other six rejected these arguments outright. Schmidt’s Federal Republic, whose Ostpolitik relied on economic engagement, was the most vocal critic.169 Later that fall, the administration debated possible COCOM measures to stop the construction of the pipeline. US appraisals concluded that the Western Europeans would never accept such a move.170 Just the day before Reagan announced the sanctions, the US Embassy in

Bonn warned that any pressure on the pipeline would be “counterproductive” and seen as a way to achieve goals that had already been rejected by many in the Alliance.171

Predictably, the measures introduced by the Reagan White House were met with frustration across the Alliance. Wolff von Amerongen, the president of the German

Industry and Trade Chamber, accused the Reagan administration of lacking any clear

168 Though officially held in nearby Montebello, Quebec, the G-7’s 1981 gathering was often referred to in diplomatic cables and briefing books as the Ottawa Summit. 169 “East-West Relations: Summit Follow-Up,” August 1981, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 16824, File 37-22-3-1, Part 15. On US opposition to the pipeline and its impact on Soviet–West German relations, see Charles William Carter, “The Importance of Osthandel: West German-Soviet Trade and the End of the Cold War, 1969-1991,” (Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 2012), 111-47. 170 “Poland: Possible Actions Against the USSR,” December 21, 1981, RRPL, Paula Dobriansky Files, Box 3, “Poland Crisis Management [1981-1982]” folder; CIA to Lenz, “Possible Allied Response to US Strategy on the Pipeline,” October 27, 1981, MTFA, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/110993.

171 Burns to Haig, “The Polish Crisis and the Siberian Pipeline,” December 28, 1981, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, available at https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/6f4a.PDF. 179

vision of what might be achieved through economic sanctions.172 US sanctions seemed to inordinately impact the Western Europeans, punishing Washington’s allies as much as—if not more than—those who had actually introduced martial law. Having previously failed to prevent the pipeline project from going ahead, Carrington thought the sanctions an attempt to “block unilaterally a project of vital importance to the Europeans in the guise of an Alliance reaction to Poland.”173 To make matters worse from a European perspective, Washington had not introduced a grain embargo as part of its response.

Doing so would have impacted the lion’s share of US-Soviet trade. US reluctance to introduce an embargo could easily be appreciated in domestic political terms; Reagan had, after all, just cancelled Carter’s grain embargo earlier that year. But, from the perspective of Washington’s partners, the absence of an embargo only underscored their sense that the sanctions burdened the Western Europeans unfairly. US high technology exports to the Soviet Union made up just four percent of the total Western figure.174

Administration efforts to justify the sanctions only added to this irritation. At one point, the Reagan administration justified its decision not to introduce a grain embargo by explaining that if the Soviets spent their limited hard currency on grain purchases, they

172 Woessner to Haig, “German Industry Reactions to President’s Statement on Economic Measures Against Soviets,” December 30, 1981, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/ DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/5be6.PDF. 173 Carrington to Washington, “Poland, the USA, and the Alliance,” January 26, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/873.

174 Steven Elliott, “The Distribution of Power and the U.S. Politics of East-West Energy Trade Controls,” in Controlling East-West Trade and Technology Transfer: Power, Politics, and Policies, ed. Gary K. Bertsch (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), 79. 180

could not spend it on an arms race with the West.175 But when Carter’s grain embargo had been lifted in April, US officials had indicated that it would be reintroduced if the situation in Poland deteriorated.176 US measures ignored real European concerns.

Whether the Reagan administration liked it or not, the Western Europeans needed access to energy sources. The oil shocks of the 1970s had left many of the allies reeling.

Washington’s warnings about the dangers of becoming too dependent on the Soviet

Union’s supplies did not change the broader realities: the United States had no alternatives to offer. Increases in oil prices, however, meant that sales would bring more hard currency into Soviet coffers.

NATO’s initial response to the introduction of martial law in Poland came across as divided and confused. US restrictions looked to block East-West trade, but the German firm Mannesmann, to give one example, announced a new pipe order signed with the

Soviet Union just days after the Reagan administration unveiled its sanctions package.177

Allied officials worried about the split appearing in transatlantic relations. A mere five days into the new year, Italian foreign minister Emilio Colombo insisted that more needed to be done at NATO’s upcoming special session to patch up the rift between the

Western Europeans and the Americans.178 In London, the Thatcher government worried

175 Thomas to Walden, “Transatlantic Relations,” July 29, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4722. 176 State to USNATO, “Decision to Lift the Grain Embargo,” April 23, 1981, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/5bae.PDF. 177 Werner D. Lippert, “Economic Diplomacy and East-West Trade During the Era of Détente: Strategy or Obstacle for the West?” in Crisis of Détente, 197.

178 “Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirektors Pfeffer,” January 5, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 6. 181

that the tensions mounting over the pipeline might spill over into other aspects of transatlantic relations.179 Any rifts caused by US measures would only benefit the Soviet

Union. Haig warned Reagan that the Soviets might try to exploit their “Marxist failure” in Poland to divide the United States from Western Europe and encourage peace movements throughout the West. To combat such a move, Haig recommended a two- pronged approach. As part of this “push and pull” strategy, he called for the United States to push public opinion in Europe while pulling governments along with clear US leadership.180 Haig’s colleagues agreed, though only to a point. William Clark, Allen’s successor as National Security Adviser, insisted that the Europeans must be made to understand the costs of “non-cooperation.” Washington would act alone if necessary.181

Haig offered his counterparts a stern warning at the North Atlantic Council’s emergency session on January 11. If NATO’s response were too weak, the Alliance would lose its credibility with the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and their own publics.182 The

Declaration on Events in Poland reflected ongoing debates over the appropriate reaction, including most notably a series of Greek reservations noted in the declaration’s footnotes.183 But in the hopes of addressing the problems emerging from the sanctions,

179 Carrington to Washington, “Poland, the USA, and the Alliance,” January 26, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/873. 180 Haig to Reagan, “U.S. Foreign Policy in 1982,” January 11, 1982, RRPL, Richard Pipes Files, Box 12, “01/08/1982-01/25/1982” folder. 181 Clark to Reagan, “Haig’s Memorandum ‘Poland -- Working with the Allies’,” n.d. [January 1982], RRPL, Richard Pipes Files, Box 12, “01/06/1982-01/07/1982” folder. 182 Alston to Broomfield, “North Atlantic Council 11 January: Poland,” January 13, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4958.

183 “Botschafter Wieck, Brüssel (NATO), an das Auswärtige Amt,” January 11, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 18. 182

the Declaration included a promise that the allies would not undermine one another’s measures in response to the introduction of martial law.184

How the US measures would impact the construction of the Siberian pipeline remained unclear. The NSC continued to debate how sanctions might be applied to

European subsidiaries of US companies.185 The German government defined “not undermining,” the phrase promised in NATO’s January 11 declaration, to mean limits only on cases where US firms had concluded direct agreements with the Soviet Union. In doing so, Bonn interpreted the clause to leave out European firms. Such an understanding of the not undermining clause meant in real terms that European firms could produce their own turbine rotors, replacing those that would have previously been supplied by US firms.186

The Reagan administration dispatched Undersecretary of State James Buckley on a five-stop European tour to try to clarify some of the outstanding issues. The Buckley

Mission, as these March visits were collectively termed, centered around East-West economic relations and the damage caused by the pipeline sanctions. In particular, the consultations were intended to reach a common position on curbing future credits from both government and private sources to the Soviet Union. Before Buckley’s European tour, Carrington worried that the US position on existing contracts might actually harden

184 “Declaration on Events in Poland,” January 11, 1982, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/ c820111a.htm. 185 Pipes, Vixi, 178.

186 Haig to US Embassy Bonn, “Allied Pledge Not to Undermine Our Sanctions,” March 16, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/ 309f.PDF. 183

if the mission did pan out the way that the administration desired. Schmidt’s dissatisfaction was on full display in his response to Carrington: the Americans, he promised, “would get bloody noses” if they tried to move against the existing contracts.187

Buckley’s visit did little to ameliorate the standing problems. Instead, his consultations illustrated the strategic differences between the various allies’ views.

Genscher highlighted the need to have a clearly defined view of the West’s goals in its relations with the East. Returning to a common theme in German policy-making circles, he insisted that limiting economic relations would do little to moderate Soviet behavior.

Rather, these restrictions invited further problems by courting a possible trade war between East and West.188

The introduction of martial law in Poland revived many of the issues already seen in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and divided the United States from the remainder of the Western allies. Some expressed exactly the same reservations as they had in 1980; the Germans, for instance, maintained the fundamental belief that sanctions served no strategic purpose. But on Poland, the Reagan administration also lost support from allies who had been far more supportive over Afghanistan. Thatcher’s government found US policy regarding Poland illogical and counter to NATO’s interests.

187 Thatcher, Schmidt et. al memorandum of conversation, March 19, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/764.

188 London to State, “Inter-Agency Mission on East-West Economic Relations: Meeting with Foreign Minister Genscher,” March 16, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/ searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/3124.PDF. 184

Limited support from the Western Europeans contributed to resentment in US political circles which some worried would only encourage the United States to adopt an even harsher tone.189 Shortly after Reagan entered the White House, historian Robert

Conquest, a great fan of Thatcher’s, reported to the British government that many in

Washington felt as though the Europeans were “ganging up” on them.190 Certainly, such attitudes were on display in the press after the introduction of martial law in Poland.

Critics in the United States, particularly on the right, drew attention to the allies’ failure to support US interests from Poland to their calls for dialogue with Libya even after it was clear that Tripoli had sponsored attempts to assassinate US officials.191 (Haig referred to adherents of this kind of isolationist thinking, especially those who wished to punish the allies, as the “Kamikaze Group.”192) One member of the administration pointed to figures that some 60% of Americans polled felt that Washington’s NATO allies were working against US interests in Poland.193

But the notion of a common European position was far from a complete assessment. To be sure, the measures which threatened the construction of the Siberian

189 Carrington-Johannesson memorandum of conversation, February 17, 1982, 11:45, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4948. 190 Conquest to Gow, April 7, 1981, MTFA, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/121299. 191 “Europe’s Reaction,” December 15, 1981, Wall Street Journal. 192 “Gesandter Dannenbring, Washington, an das Auswärtige Amt,” January 9, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 15.

193 Fischer to Stoessel, “Public Views European Allies as Not Supportive, But Remains Committed to Their Defense,” March 12, 1982, RRPL, Dennis C. Blair Files, RAC Box 4, “Public Diplomacy 1982 (March 1982)” folder. 185

pipeline galvanized near universal opposition to Washington’s policies.194 The reasons for this opposition, however, varied from capital to capital: some of the allies objected to the sanctions for practical reasons, while others rejected the underlying strategic logic of any trade restrictions. Moreover, the pipeline dispute was only one aspect of the Western response to events in Poland. Some support could nevertheless be found for the administration’s overall approach to economic relations with the Soviet Union, despite the bitter squabbles over the oil and gas technology sanctions. France’s new President

François Mitterrand, during a March visit to Washington, offered his support for policies designed to place economic pressure on the Soviet Union. When Haig called it an “olive branch,” the British Ambassador quipped in his cable back to London that “it looks more like a tree to me.”195

Conclusion

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the introduction of martial law in Poland dealt major blows to both East-West and West-West relations. The two crises severely eroded confidence in Soviet behavior, leaving many to question how and why détente should be pursued. Non-governmental groups, such as the German Trade Union Federation,

194 See, for recent examples, Andrea Chiampan, “‘Those European Chicken Littles’: Reagan, NATO, and the Polish Crisis, 1981–2,” The International History Review, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2015): 682-99; Demidova, “The Deal of the Century,” 59-82.

195 Henderson to FCO, “Mitterrand Visit to Washington,” March 13, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4720. 186

revisited policies of engagement with the East.196 Over Afghanistan and again over

Poland, the United States seemed isolated from its NATO allies as pundits produced reams of pessimistic assessments about the health of the Alliance. Both issues spoke to the danger that détente could be divided, separating relations between the superpowers from the situation in Europe. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for instance, the

US Embassy in London warned that the move could be “a seductive effort” on Moscow’s part to convince the Western Europeans that “all is quiet on the Western front.”197

The notion of a divisible détente played on and reinforced stereotypes about the structure of the transatlantic partnership and individual allies’ roles within it. The Alliance had become one between a “bad cop” in Washington—be it Jimmy Carter or Ronald

Reagan—and a squad of “good cops” in Western Europe.198 Superpower détente, now seemingly defunct, was global in scope—an emphasis that proved central to its decline.

Events in Angola, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Nicaragua all played a role in souring relations between Moscow and Washington. By contrast, détente’s

European iteration seemed regional in scope and therefore divisible from Soviet misdeeds across the globe.

196 Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB). Burns to State, “DGB’s Ostpolitik Unraveling,” February 18, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/ foiadocs/6f33.PDF. 197 US Embassy London to State, “European Response to the Afghan Crisis,” January 6, 1980, U.S. Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/1-FY2013/ F-2011-01527/DOC_0C17669782/C17669782.pdf.

198 Hanhimäki, Schoenborn, and Zanchetta, Transatlantic Relations Since 1945, 96. Chapter 5: Revisiting Harmel

“Most Americans, on coming to believe that the Russians intended to become eight feet tall, saw no reason why they should not go about being eight feet tall, too. A number of Europeans … reacted differently. Seeing the Russians trying to be eight feet tall, their reaction is to become eight inches tall and hope the Russians won’t see them.”1 — Paul Nitze, 1981

“Most Americans think that the Alliance is about being against the Soviet Union. Most Europeans think it is about living alongside the Soviet Union in security.”2 — Oliver Wright, 1982

After Afghanistan and Poland, détente appeared to have disappeared from the superpowers’ vernacular entirely. To be sure, the Soviet Union still invoked the term détente, but it seemed nothing more than “a device to cause a relaxation of Western efforts to protect themselves,” not a genuine desire to improve relations between East and

West. 3 Though speculation about the decline of superpower relations had been commonplace since the mid-1970s, many laid the blame for their poor state with Ronald

Reagan. The administration’s massive defense expenditures, economic sanctions, and anti-Soviet rhetoric became the hallmarks of what was dubbed the “Second Cold War.”4

1 Nitze remarks, Committee on the Present Danger, November 12, 1981, LOC, Paul H. Nitze Papers, Part 1, Box 70, “Committee on the Present Danger Meetings 12-13 Nov 1981” folder. 2 Wright to Pym, “The Siberian Pipeline: Lessons for the Future,” December 10, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 33/5362. 3 Kampelman remarks, Madrid CSCE Review Conference, February 26, 1982, in Three Years at the East- West Divide: The Words of U.S. Ambassador Max M. Kampelman at the Madrid Conference on Security and Human Rights, ed. Leonard R. Sussman (New York: Freedom House, 1983), 83.

4 Fred Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso, 1983). 187 188

The Polish Crisis, like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan before it, encouraged a transatlantic debate over the purpose of sanctions and the best means of handling East-

West relations. Some in the West saw a chance to “exploit endemic weakness” in the

Soviet empire. On the other side of the spectrum, many championed unilateral disarmament in the face of the Soviet build-up.5 Pundits returned to an ever-popular theme, speculating about another crisis dividing the Atlantic Alliance. US intelligence assessments concluded that NATO could reach nothing more than “lowest common denominator solutions.”6 The strains caused by Poland, along with the debates over the

Euromissiles, were so damaging that NATO felt it necessary to produce a special issue of the NATO Review in response to the “intense questioning” of the Alliance now taking place. All six of the issue’s articles grappled with the main challenges facing the West; one dealt explicitly with the continued relevance of Harmel’s paired formula of détente and defense.7

Many of these transatlantic difficulties stemmed from confusion and frustration about what Washington actually hoped to achieve with its package of sanctions. US foreign policy under Reagan, Nicholas Henderson cabled from Washington, seemed nothing more than a “muddle.”8 “You are asking us to go with you on a journey,” the

5 Luns report, “Annual Political Appraisal,” April 27, 1982, NATO, C-M(82)34. 6 National Intelligence cable (daily), “Western Europe – Poland: Political and Security Concerns,” January 9, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP54T00301R000100010027-7. 7 Joseph M.A.H. Luns, “Introduction,” NATO Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (June 1982): 1; Guy de Carmoy, “Defence and Détente: Two Complementary Policies,” NATO Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (June 1982): 12-7.

8 Henderson to FCO, “President Reagan’s Visit to Europe,” June 1, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4721. 189

French minister of commerce, Michel Jobert, told an audience at the American Enterprise

Institute, “but you are not telling us where you are heading and where we will end up.”9

Even Richard Pipes warned that the United States would lose support from its transatlantic partners if the administration could not be clear about the purpose of introducing sanctions.10 Those in Western Europe were not content to simply pursue a continental form of détente, regardless of the state of US-Soviet relations. Using NATO’s existing Harmel strategy as leverage, Helmut Schmidt’s government pushed for the

Reagan administration to return to the two principles of détente and defense as they had been outlined in 1967.

Against the backdrop of events in Poland and simmering discontent over the

Dual-Track Decision, the Federal Republic and the United States championed two distinct visions of NATO’s strategy for East-West relations. Schmidt’s government, fearful about the damage being caused by Reagan’s approach, spearheaded a campaign to return to the double philosophy outlined in the Harmel Report. In Washington, members of the Reagan administration looked to transform NATO’s existing consensus. Both hoped that the Alliance’s June 1982 summit in Bonn could be used to resolve these debates, but the disagreements over fundamental strategy lingered. A new batch of US sanctions against the Soviet Union reignited many of the issues from earlier that year and,

9 Quoted in Pipes to Clark, “Statement on U.S. Strategy Toward Soviet Union,” March 5, 1982, RRPL, Richard Pipes Files, Box 5, “Soviet NSSD I” folder.

10 Pipes to Clark, “Statement on U.S. Strategy Toward Soviet Union,” March 5, 1982, RRPL, Richard Pipes Files, Box 5, “Soviet NSSD I” folder. 190

in so doing, ratcheted up the pressure to resolve these transatlantic issues. With an eye toward the deployment of the Euromissiles scheduled for 1983, the Western allies worked for a resolution. Their efforts, however, did little to tackle the underlying structural discrepancies between the allies’ views. Paradoxically, the need to project a unified front in the so-called “year of the missile” meant that the Western allies left their strategic disagreements unresolved.

Out of Step

After the introduction of martial law in Poland, Bonn’s transatlantic partners quickly assumed that the Federal Republic would not tolerate too firm a Western response.

Schmidt’s immediate reaction certainly seemed to indicate as much. Schmidt, who was in the DDR for talks with his East German counterpart, Erich Honecker, stayed to finish the summit. In an interview with the New York Times in early January, Schmidt all but dismissed the issue. It had been necessary, he remarked, to warn Moscow about the impact any direct intervention in Poland would have on East-West affairs. But Schmidt went on, noting that “the West agreed at Yalta in 1945 to divide Europe into spheres of influence.”11 Der Spiegel’s front page on January 11 carried the headline “Jalta 1945:

Wie Polen Verkauft Werde”—Yalta 1945: How Poland was Sold.12 References to the Yalta

Conference caused alarm. Emilio Colombo, for instance, insisted that the chancellor stop

11 James Reston, “Schmidt Voicing Greater Concern Over Economy Than Over Poland,” January 3, 1982, The New York Times.

12 Der Spiegel 2/1982, January 11, 1982. 191

invoking Yalta immediately. The CSCE process had been designed to overcome Yalta and transform the status quo.13 Haig appealed directly to the Harmel Report, arguing to

Schmidt that the notion of spheres of influence had been rendered obsolete by its détente policy.14 Across the Alliance, press coverage of Bonn’s Polish policy was overwhelmingly negative. French newspapers roundly condemned the Federal Republic’s response; Express, for instance, referred to the government in Bonn as the “German boot- mate of the Kremlin.”15 Italian officials warned their counterparts in Bonn that fears of a new Rapallo had already resurfaced as a result of the Polish Crisis.16

Schmidt’s government did not reject the need to respond to the situation in

Poland. Instead, it was a question of tactics. As over Afghanistan, Schmidt saw no value in destroying relations over the events in Poland. Any measures undertaken by the West should exert political pressure on the East, not cause “irreparable damage” to relations.

To maintain this balance, professional and political contacts should be reduced on a number of issues. None of these measures, however, should impact the basic framework of relations. Arms control negotiations should continue, as should bilateral and multilateral fora for political dialogue between East and West.17

13 “Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirektors Pfeffer,” January 5, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 6. 14 “Gesandter Dannenbring, Washington, an das Auswärtige Amt,” January 9, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 15; Haig-Schmidt et al. memorandum of conversation, January 6, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/31b3.PDF. 15 “Botschafter Herbst, Paris, an das Auswärtige Amt,” January 6, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 8. 16 “Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirektors Pfeffer,” January 5, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 6.

17 “Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirigenten Bräutigam,” January 27, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 33. 192

The differences between the United States and the Federal Republic were obvious from the outset. Haig opened one consultation in early January, remarking that Bonn’s position seemed closer to Moscow’s than its own ally’s. Much of Bonn’s predicted opposition boiled down to the Federal Republic’s aversion to the use of sanctions.

Schmidt pointed to the repeated failure of sanctions to bring about meaningful change.

Neither Carter’s Olympic boycott nor his sanctions on Iran, Schmidt argued, had achieved their desired objectives. Haig and Genscher chalked the differences between

Bonn and Washington up to inaccurate and hyperbolic press reports.18 But the disagreements ran far deeper than media coverage. Genscher told the Bundestag’s

Foreign Affairs Committee in February that relations between the Federal Republic and the United States, along with the larger US–Western European relationship, were his largest worry. As far as Genscher was concerned, the problems reported by the press were symptomatic of larger divergences in public opinion on the two sides of the Atlantic. He pointed to a United States still plagued by insecurity after the setbacks of the 1970s. “It cannot be surprising,” he concluded, that the voters endorsed a candidate in Ronald

Reagan who had pledged “to revive the American empire.”19 Reagan’s policies left

Schmidt frustrated. Washington’s failure to reduce interest rates and constant nagging for increases in defense spending irritated the chancellor. But it was the administration’s

“lack of feel for East-West relations” that Schmidt identified as the greatest problem.

18 “Gesandter Dannenbring, Washington, an das Auswärtige Amt,” January 6, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 9.

19 “Aufzeichnung des Vortragenden Legionsrats I. Klasse Edler von Braunmühl,” February 16, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 58. 193

From Bonn, the British Ambassador Jock Taylor concluded that Schmidt simply could not appreciate that he, too, might have contributed to some of these problems.20

Many in Bonn felt that the Reagan administration had abandoned the approach laid out in the Harmel Report.21 In January 1982, Der Spiegel leaked details on a document prepared by the planning staff at the Auswärtiges Amt, a complete review of

NATO’s policy and its relationship to Ostpolitik. Bonn’s policies, the report worried, were out of step not only with Washington, but also with France, Italy, and the United

Kingdom. Put another way, Ostpolitik now seemed at odds with the Federal Republic’s

Alliance policy.22 Such concerns were not new amongst West German diplomats working at NATO. Shortly after Reagan entered the White House, the German ambassador to

NATO Hans-Georg Wieck had warned that NATO’s existing strategy would need to be clarified. The Western allies, he cabled from Brussels, must revisit what détente meant as a policy. In doing so, they would need to evaluate its fundamental tenets: the notion of détente’s indivisibility, the role of reciprocity and linkage in détente, and the appropriate balance between defense and arms control.23 Allied debates following the introduction of martial law in Poland further underscored these concerns. Taylor assumed that the

Schmidt government would push for a combined approach reinforcing the two existing

20 Taylor to FCO, “Anglo-German Summit: The Mood in the FRG,” March 15, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/764. 21 See, for example, Stoessel to Bonn, “[Redacted] Visit,” April 10, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/6ead.PDF. 22 “Aussenpolitik: Feste Sprache,” January 25, 1982, Der Spiegel 4/1982.

23 “Botschafter Wieck, Brüssel (NATO), an das Auswärtige Amt,” February 16, 1981, AAPD 1981 I, doc. 42. 194

prongs of the Harmel Report. Crucial to this initiative would be a new set of terminology: given domestic political sensitivities over détente in the United States, the term would be studiously avoided as the language itself would matter a great deal to securing US support.24

In an address at Davos in late January, Genscher urged that the gains made through détente not be put in jeopardy. The CSCE process, for instance, must be maintained. Despite the recent difficulties in East-West relations, not least events in

Poland, he warned against undue pessimism about détente. The paired approach first outlined by the allies in 1967, he noted, had formed the foundation for the Dual-Track

Decision and Reagan’s zero option proposal. Détente remained vital to the West’s overall strategy, as Genscher defined it. He outlined a strategic vision shaped by political, economic, and human considerations. Only through connections with the East could the

Western allies begin to reduce East-West tensions and encourage restraint on the part of the Soviet Union.25

Building on the message laid out in his Davos speech, Genscher began a diplomatic offensive to underscore the continued importance of the Harmel Report’s double philosophy. Meeting with Caspar Weinberger in early March, Genscher pointed to the need for both prongs. Defense, Genscher felt, had been neglected during the 1970s,

24 Taylor to FCO, “Auswaertiges Amt Planning Staff Paper on East/West Policy,” January 27, 1982, TNA- UK, FCO 28/4707.

25 Burns to State, “Genscher Foreign Policy Speech,” February 19, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/6ef8.PDF. 195

thereby giving the Soviet Union a false sense of confidence. Weinberger, for his part, expressed characteristic dislike for détente: it had not stopped the Soviet Union’s military build-up.26

Genscher’s trip to Washington presented a chance to ameliorate some of the difficulties in bilateral relations. Briefing the president before Genscher’s visit, Haig painted a fairly grim picture of US-German relations plagued by strains between the two capitals and within Schmidt’s government. In particular, the Secretary of State pointed to

“inaccurate” German anxieties that the administration did not appreciate “their special interests in East-West matters.”27 Briefing his colleagues at the European Community after the visit, Genscher rejected the Reagan administration’s efforts to revisit allied strategy at the upcoming NATO Summit in Bonn. “We should be aware of waking sleeping dogs,” he warned.28 A few days later, in conversation with Norwegian Foreign

Minister Svenn Stray, he again underscored the importance of the Harmel Report and spoke of the need to better coordinate NATO’s policy. Individual members of the Alliance could contribute to collective policies in their own way, he argued, and “not all have to play the same instrument.”29

26 “Botschafter Hermes, Washington, an das Auswärtige Amt,” March 9, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 79. 27 Haig to Reagan, “Visit of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, March 7-9, 1982,” March 5, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/31e4.PDF. 28 Washington to FCO, “Genscher Visit to US: Community Briefing,” March 10, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1152.

29 “Gespräch des Bundesministers Genscher mit dem norwegischen Außenminister Stray,” March 15, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 80. 196

When Thatcher and Schmidt met on March 19, much of their discussion revolved around the problems in US–West European relations. Schmidt insisted that combatting public perceptions of a transatlantic fissure be the main priority at NATO’s June summit in Bonn, as well as the upcoming gathering of the G-7 in Versailles. But the NATO allies, he insisted, needed to decide if they hoped to reach a common position. Schmidt lobbied in particular for a “restatement” of the Harmel Report’s double philosophy. By reaffirming the Alliance’s commitment to both its military posture and the need to conclude arms control and disarmament agreements with the East, the Western allies could ameliorate public concerns and build support for both tracks of defense and détente.30

Thatcher appreciated the need to balance the two. Her government had long regarded them as complementary. Carrington, in his first ministerial session of the North

Atlantic Council in May 1979, for instance, told his colleagues that “only from a strong base can we work to make East-West relations more stable, more predictable and more fruitful.”31 But the prime minister remained deeply skeptical about détente, a mistrust reflected in her studious avoidance of the term in favor of the somewhat more specific disarmament. Schmidt unsurprisingly shared none of her hesitation. He responded to her skepticism with a bold call to action:

30 Thatcher, Schmidt et al. memorandum of conversation, March 19, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/764. For the West German record of conversation, see “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Schmidt mit Premierministerin Thatcher in Chequers,” March 19, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 91.

31 Verbatim record, NAC ministerial meeting, Leeuwenhorst Congress Centre, Noordwijkerhout, May 30, 1979, NATO, C-VR(79)21 I. 197

Ordinary, honest people were afraid and anxious. Moscow did an almost perfect public relations job, partly publicly and partly clandestinely. American public relations were very poor. Many people were honestly disturbed by American speeches about a pre-war situation, about the possibility of limited nuclear war in Europe and the need to make greater defense efforts. All this was an adverse effect. It could be partly counter- balanced by a re-statement at the NATO Summit of NATO’s basic philosophy of the last 15 years. This should reiterate the fundamental concepts in the Harmel Report … Essentially, we should make plain beyond doubt to the Soviet Union that we would not neglect the need to deter or to defend. But with that as our starting point we should work for negotiations and treaties on INF, START and on trade and economic co- operation on the basis of equal mutual benefit. A revival of these ideas would enable the West to do what was necessary for the defense effort.

Thatcher remained unconvinced, and countered by referring to détente as “out-moded” in the wake of events in Afghanistan and Poland. Schmidt refused to be put off by her semantics. The fact remained that “the essence of the double track philosophy was right.

The precise label was a matter of choice,” he argued.32 Schmidt could not care less if it were called détente, so long as the Alliance reaffirmed the fundamental soundness of

Harmel’s two-pronged approach at its summit in Bonn.

This theme appeared time and again in the lead up to the Bonn Summit. At a meeting between the Big Four foreign ministers in May, Genscher underscored the need for the summit’s final communiqué to illustrate that the ball lay in the East’s court. Since the Rome ministerial the previous year, NATO’s members had made repeated overtures to the Soviet Union. The Western allies had called for confidence-building measures extending from the Atlantic to the Urals with no meaningful response from Moscow.

32 Thatcher, Schmidt et al. memorandum of conversation, March 19, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/764. 198

Reagan’s zero option proposal at the INF talks went unanswered. Reagan, in a question- and-answer session with reporters in early April, expressed his hopes that he and

Brezhnev might meet on the outskirts of the upcoming United Nations Special Session on

Disarmament.33 Lastly, Reagan had made a series of new proposals for the Strategic

Arms Reduction Talks (START) in an address at his alma mater, Eureka College, in May.

Each of these initiatives, Genscher stressed, demonstrated that the Alliance remained wedded to the Harmel Report. The West would do what was necessary to ensure their defense and security, all the while pursuing dialogue and arms control with the East.

Genscher’s calls to emphasize Harmel were met with resistance from Haig. Worried that

Genscher’s formulation unduly emphasized arms control, the Secretary of State insisted that deterrence must be the main element of NATO’s policy. Haig reminded his counterparts that détente was seen in the United States as a failure. Any invocation of

Harmel was likely to be met with skepticism at home.34

Preparing for Reagan’s planned visit to Europe in June, the Auswärtiges Amt considered the possibility of a joint US-German initiative to update the Harmel Report.

Though revisiting the policy could pose a risk, exposing the differences in interpretations between the two, doing so could also reaffirm the dynamic nature of détente. Moreover, a

33 Reagan question and answer session, April 5, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 430.

34 “Gespräch des Bundesministers Genscher mit den Außenministern Cheysson (Frankreich), Haig (USA) und Pym (Großbritannien) in Luxemburg,” May 16, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 152. 199

joint initiative from Bonn and Washington could combat perceptions of a rift between the two capitals.35

Schmidt’s government chalked the malaise in the Federal Republic and throughout the Alliance up to the strategic debates which had opened up between the allies. Without a common foreign policy, these problems would only continue. The chancellor appealed to the need for transatlantic solidarity and cohesion to preserve a

Cold War strategy that suited Bonn’s interests. Reasserting the logic of the Harmel Report served a political purpose. If Schmidt and Genscher were able to secure a strong endorsement for their approach to East-West relations, it would underscore a central element of the SPD-FDP coalition’s image: the Federal Republic’s role in improving relations between the superpowers.36

Eureka

“How should we deal with the Soviet Union in the years ahead?,” Ronald Reagan asked an audience at his alma mater, Eureka College. “What framework should guide our conduct and our policies toward it? And what can we realistically expect from a world power of such deep fears, hostilities, and external ambitions?”37

35 “Aufzeichnung des Vortragenden Legationsrats I. Klasse Seitz,” April 8, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 111. 36 Bonn to FCO, “North Atlantic Council Summit Meeting Bonn, 9-10 June,” June 8, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4748.

37 Reagan remarks, “Address at Commencement Exercises at Eureka College in Illinois,” May 9, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 582. 200

Reagan followed these questions up, proposing a possible solution. He laid out a new, five point approach to guide the West’s relations with the Soviet Union. Military balance, economic security, regional issues, reductions in both nuclear and conventional weapons, and dialogue, the president insisted, should form the basis for managing relations going forward. He expressed optimism that “a more constructive relationship” might be built, but insisted that the West could only do so if they acknowledged the

Soviet system for what it was.38

Reagan’s Eureka College speech reflected a reality increasingly understood in

Washington, thanks to the acrimonious debates over the Polish sanctions: the administration’s view of East-West relations enjoyed little support elsewhere in the

Alliance. Haig’s overview of US foreign policy for 1982, for instance, warned that the administration’s—and particularly the president’s—views were not shared by Western

Europe.39 Later, during Genscher’s March visit to Washington, Haig remarked in one joint press conference that the erosion of public confidence in the Germans on display in newspapers across the United States suggested the need for a broader reassessment of

NATO’s approach. It was time to improve transatlantic consultative mechanisms and perhaps even broaden the Alliance’s political functions.40 Over the spring of 1982, the

Reagan White House considered options to shift the Alliance’s position to be more in line

38 Reagan remarks, “Address at Commencement Exercises at Eureka College in Illinois,” May 9, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 582-3. 39 Haig to Reagan, “U.S. Foreign Policy in 1982,” January 11, 1982, RRPL, Richard Pipes Files, Box 12, Folder “01/08/1982-01/25/1982.”

40 State to Bonn, “Haig/Genscher Interview March 8, 1982,” March 10, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/31de.PDF. 201

with the administration’s views. NATO’s June summit in Bonn seemed a prime opportunity to do so.

In March, the Senior Interagency Group identified three specific objectives for the

Bonn Summit. The NATO allies should endorse a “framework of global restraint and responsibility.” This new approach, the Group’s briefings explicitly noted, should be designed to move the consensus within NATO away from the existing Harmel framework. To secure support for this new formulation, the Senior Interagency Group underscored the need to move away from the Harmel Report without directly calling into question the strategy held dear by the Europeans. In place of the 1967 Report, US officials envisioned a framework focused more narrowly on defense, arms control, and global issues. It would lay blame for the current difficulties in relations squarely on the

Soviet Union. Alongside this new approach, they envisioned a summit focused on conventional defense issues and identifying a coherent course for the 1980s.41 More broadly, the Senior Interagency Group’s consultations reflected the conviction that

Alliance strategy needed to develop a new consensus. The substantive (and mounting) number of issues dividing the Western allies—economic, military, and political—were cause for grave concern.42

41 Bremer to Bearg Dyke et al., “NATO Summit Preparations,” March 1, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA- RDP84B00049R000500980004-1.

42 Bremer to Bearg Dyke, Wheeler et al., “NATO Summit Preparations,” March 1, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP84B00049R000500980004-1. 202

To map out a course for the 1980s, the Senior Interagency Group considered pushing for a new study on the future of the Alliance akin to the Wise Men’s Study undertaken in 1956.43 The prospect of a new Wise Men initiative was met with skepticism

—and countless cracks about how “wise” any such study would be—in allied policy- making circles. Genscher derided it as an attempt to strike a balance between Haig’s desire for a new political strategy and the Pentagon’s hopes for a new military strategy.

Carrington quipped that “ferrets should not be sent to a rabbit farm.”44

Reagan’s Eureka College address suggested an alternative formulation of East-

West relations, reflective of the priorities outlined in the Senior Interagency Group’s discussions. Alongside his five point strategy, Reagan placed considerable emphasis on the importance of Western unity as a precondition for any improvements in East-West relations:

I believe the unity of the West is the foundation for any successful relationship with the East. Without Western unity, we’ll squander our energies in bickering while the Soviets continue to do as they please. With unity, we have the strength to moderate Soviet behavior. We’ve done so in the past, and we can do so again.45

43 Bremer to Bearg Dyke et al., “NATO Summit Preparations,” March 1, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA- RDP84B00049R000500980004-1. 44 “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Schmidt mit Premierministerin Thatcher in Chequers,” March 19, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 91.

45 Reagan remarks, “Address at Commencement Exercises at Eureka College in Illinois,” May 9, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 581. 203

Reagan’s comments were consistent with decades of US thinking about NATO: Western cohesion remained a precondition for any improvements with the East.46

The White House planned a trip for the president, culminating in the Bonn

Summit, whose itinerary was designed to project an image of transatlantic cohesion—and of strong US leadership at the helm of a robust Alliance.47 These two central objectives were inextricably linked in the minds of most in the administration. The need to project unity was shared in policy-making circles throughout the West. British officials envisioned a mediating role for themselves and hoped that the Bonn Summit might be used to unify NATO’s policies; Thatcher’s memoirs emphasized the initial British idea of a summit for precisely this reason.48 During Reagan’s stop in London, Haig identified three main goals for the Bonn Summit in consultations between Thatcher, Reagan, and their foreign ministers. The Secretary of State pointed to the desire to show Western solidarity, the strength of the Alliance, and reaffirm their collective commitment to dialogue. When Thatcher inquired about the nature of this dialogue, Haig replied that it would be aimed at achieving “restraint and responsibility” in political relations between

East and West.49

46 See, for example, Scope paper, “NATO Ministerial Meeting, Paris, December 14 – 16, 1966,” December 7, 1966, LBJL, National Security File, International Meetings and Travel File, Box 35, “NATO Ministerial Meeting, Paris December, 1966 [1 of 3]” folder. 47 Bremer to Bearg Dyke, Wheeler et al., “NATO and Versailles Summits: Paper on Linkage and Speech Strategy,” April 8, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP83M00914R000500120020-6. 48 FCO steering brief, “President Reagan’s Visit to London, 7–9 June 1982, Talks with the Prime Minister, 9 am Wednesday, 9 June,” n.d. [June 1982], TNA-UK, PREM 19/943; Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 259.

49 Thatcher, Reagan et al. record of conversation, June 9, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/943. 204

British officials hoped that Reagan’s June stop in London could help blunt anti-

American sentiments in the United Kingdom by demonstrating that the president was

“more like a friendly uncle than a nuclear cowboy.”50 Any such message got lost.

Reagan’s address before the British Parliament, for instance, was remembered more for his comments about communism ending up on the ash-heap of history than any of his other remarks. In fact, his speech offered a far more sweeping vision of the Cold War struggle and its resolution, whenever that day might finally come.51 The president’s remarks pointed to the very real need for negotiation and dialogue, and affirmed his personal commitment to negotiations as a fundamental duty to reduce the risk of war:

There are threats now to our freedom, indeed to our very existence, that other generations could never have imagined. There is first the threat of global war. No President, no Congress, no Prime Minister, no Parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. And I don’t have to tell you that in today's world the existence of nuclear weapons could mean, if not the extinction of mankind, then surely the end of civilization as we know it. That’s why negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces [are] now underway in Europe and the START talks—Strategic Arms Reductions Talks—which will begin later this month are not just critical to American or Western policy; they are critical to mankind. Our commitment to early success in these negotiations is firm and unshakable, and our purpose is clear: reducing the risk of war by reducing the means of waging war on both sides.52

Later in the speech, just after the “ash-heap of history” comment, Reagan affirmed that

“our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this

50 Giffard to Henderson, “The ‘Transatlantic Crisis’,” March 5, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4719. 51 Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989 (New York: Crown Forum, 2009), 254-7.

52 Reagan remarks, British Parliament, London, June 8, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 743. 205

strength in the hope it will never be used.”53 Assertions like these were largely ignored, especially by the president’s critics. Reagan’s address to the British Parliament was instead seen as confirmation of his hardline tendencies. Even British officials concluded that the “downright hostile” elements of the speech reflected Reagan’s real views; the more moderate passages were chalked up to his speechwriters’ efforts to redress Western

European fears about “his ‘warmongering’ image.”54

When Reagan stopped in Bonn, the Christian Democrats coordinated a rally in support of the United States and the Atlantic Alliance. Helmut Kohl, the party’s chairman addressed a crowd of 120,000, promising that West Germans had not forgotten the United

States’ vital role in defending their free society. Demonstrators carried banners with slogans affirming their appreciation for the United States, including (in a reference to the popular 1980s television series, Dallas) “we prefer J.R. in Dallas to Leonid in

Germany.”55

The Eye of the Storm

Symbolically, the Bonn Summit mattered. It afforded a visible moment to project the desired image of a strong and cohesive Alliance, countering widespread speculation about

53 Reagan remarks, British Parliament, London, June 8, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 747. This line was used as the synopsis for Reagan’s address in one collection of Reagan’s early speeches, published by a grassroots coalition known as Americans for the Reagan Agenda. A Time for Choosing: The Speeches of Ronald Reagan 1961–1982 (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1983), 321. 54 Barrie to Wall, “Visit of President Reagan: Speech to Members of Both Houses of Parliament,” June 30, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4721.

55 Alice Siegert, “120,000 Germans at rally: ‘Yankee don’t go home’,” June 6, 1982, Chicago Tribune. 206

NATO’s poor health. Spain’s accession to the Alliance as its sixteenth member—the first since the Federal Republic had joined in 1955—afforded prime evidence of NATO’s continued relevance. As the summit’s host, the Federal Republic wished to project an image of clear support for the Alliance. They accordingly worried about planned anti-

NATO, anti-nuclear, and anti-Reagan demonstrations and how these rallies might be depicted by US media outlets.56 Schmidt and Genscher hoped to polish their credentials as sound statesmen.57 For Reagan and his advisors, it afforded a chance to bolster the president’s image as the leader of a strong and unified Alliance. Reagan’s first NATO summit since taking office, the Bonn Summit would be “in every sense of the word a

Presidential show.”58

At the NAC ministerial in May, much of the discussion revolved around the future of NATO’s two-pronged strategy. Speaker after speaker highlighted the continued importance of the Harmel approach; foreign ministers Leo Tindemans, Colette Flesch,

İlter Türkmen, Ólafur Jóhannesson, and Ioannis Haralambopoulos all offered endorsements of NATO’s existing strategy.59 Compared to many of its European counterparts, the Thatcher government expressed far greater skepticism about the future of détente. During Reagan’s stop in London, for instance, Thatcher remarked that there

56 “Aufzeichnung des Vortragenden Legationsrats I. Klasse Seitz,” April 8, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 111. 57 Bonn to FCO, “North Atlantic Council Summit Meeting Bonn, 9-10 June,” June 8, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4748. 58 Bremer to Bearg Dyke et al., “NATO Summit Preparations,” March 1, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA- RDP84B00049R000500980004-1.

59 Luxembourg to FCO, “NAC Ministerial Meeting Super Restricted Session: Bonn Summit, Arms Control and East/West Relations Including Poland,” May 17, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4961. 207

was a clear difference between dialogue and détente: “Afghanistan had come in between.”60 Hesitation in London was hardly surprising, given the prime minister’s earlier denunciations of détente. But the British formulation largely reflected the

Alliance’s existing strategy. In order to cultivate and maintain its public image, NATO needed to ensure it possessed “a combination of strong defense and a commitment to arms control.”61 London’s approach offered a more circumscribed vision of engagement with the East focused on reducing the threat of nuclear or conventional war, but nevertheless accepted the soundness of a balanced strategy.

Reagan began his remarks at the Bonn Summit by highlighting the need for clear direction within the Alliance. The debates currently underway about the relationship between defense and disarmament, the president argued, only served to sow doubt amongst Western publics about the ongoing need for NATO. Thatcher offered her support for the five point approach Reagan had laid out in his speech at Eureka College the previous month. In so doing, she drew particular attention to the need to keep the lines of communication open with the East. These channels must be used to convey Western thinking and expectations to the Kremlin. Echoing the earlier ministerial discussions at

Luxembourg, other allied heads of state offered explicit reaffirmations of Harmel’s two prongs. Dries Van Agt insisted that it remained fundamentally correct, though he warned

60 Thatcher, Reagan et al. record of conversation, June 9, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/943.

61 “NATO Summit: International Background and Themes for the Prime Minister’s Intervention,” n.d. [June 1982], TNA-UK, FCO 28/4748. 208

of the dangers in creating “dependencies” with the East. Norwegian Prime Minister Kåre

Willoch, too, affirmed NATO’s existing balanced approach.62

At Bonn, Reagan insisted that the Soviet Union had exploited détente, a view out of sync with the majority of the NATO allies. Moscow had repurposed technologies accessed through the trade of the 1970s for military ends, such as the Kamaz project vehicles used as troop transports in Afghanistan and the use of Western technology in

Soviet MIRVs. But he also insisted that the allies could not accept “a return to the Cold

War.” They must make it clear to the Kremlin that the West needed to see concrete actions beyond rhetoric about improving East-West relations. Any relaxation of tensions could not be “some ridiculous sort of détente that permits [the Soviets] to go building up.”63 Reagan’s comments reflected two basic ideas: his association of détente with

American weakness and his desire to see real improvements in US-Soviet relations. His tendency to stick closely to his scripted remarks made the president’s competing messages all the more difficult to parse.

The final declaration released at the Bonn Summit nebulously reaffirmed the continued value of NATO. The Atlantic Alliance continued to be “the essential instrument for deterring aggression by means of a strong defense and strengthening peace by means of constructive dialogue.”64 Schmidt pointed to the summit’s outcome as a reaffirmation

62 “Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirektrors Pfeffer und des Botschafters Wieck, z.Z. Bonn,” June 11, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 179. 63 Graham to FCO, “NATO Summit Meeting, Bonn 10 June,” June 11, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4748.

64 “Declaration of Heads of State and Government,” June 10, 1982, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/ comm/49-95/c820610a.htm. 209

of NATO’s willingness to maintain its defenses and negotiate with the East—his desired result.65 In Pravda, the allies’ statement dedicated to disarmament was dismissed as a sign that the United States had once again foisted its views on the rest of the Alliance.66

After the Bonn Summit, Luns called for the North Atlantic Council to devote its full resources to reassessing the current international landscape “with a view to devising a coherent Western strategy encompassing the entire range of East-West relations.”67

The final declaration endorsed by the sixteen allies at the Bonn Summit reflected a compromise: while the statement did not explicitly reference the Harmel Report, the double philosophy was still visible in its references to dialogue and strong Western defenses. Moreover, the declaration affirmed that the Alliance’s purpose was “to develop substantial and balanced East-West relations aimed at genuine détente.”68 With these affirmations, the statement was hardly the marked departure from NATO’s earlier formulations envisioned by the Senior Interagency Group. The United States did secure the inclusion of a clear call for restraint on Moscow’s part as a crucial element to improve relations. At its core, the Bonn Declaration outlined a vision of détente’s continued

65 Bonn to State, “Schmidt’s Governmental Declaration Before the Bundestag on Foreign Policy Issues,” June 24, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/ foiadocs/6f0e.PDF. 66 “NATO’s Two Faces,” June 11, 1982, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 34, No. 23 (July 1982), 9. 67 Luns to Permanent Representatives, “Follow-Up to the Meeting of the Heads of State and Government at Bonn on 10th June 1982,” July 19, 1982, NATO, PO/82/86.

68 “Declaration of Heads of State and Government,” June 10, 1982, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/ comm/49-95/c820610a.htm. 210

significance, not as a reflection of the current state of affairs in East-West relations, but as a strategy and an objective guiding the West’s policies.

Even More Problems

The Bonn Summit did not resolve the underlying issues surrounding NATO’s handling of

East-West relations, nor did the meetings of NATO and the G-7 patch up the problems caused by the Reagan administration’s Polish sanctions. The summits at Bonn and

Versailles were merely “the calm at the eye of the storm.”69 On June 18, the Reagan

White House announced an additional set of sanctions, extending the December restrictions on oil and gas technologies due to the lack of relaxation of martial law in

Poland.70 Now expanded to include overseas licensees and subsidiaries of US companies, the measures reignited the controversy within the Alliance. The decision seemed to confirm the very worst aspects of Reagan’s decision-making. Consistency appeared to have greater value in Washington than the views of Washington’s own allies.71

By introducing retroactive and extraterritorial provisions, the new US sanctions now clearly stood in the way of the pipeline’s construction. Thatcher balked at the impact on British firms, concerned in particular about the damage which would be inflicted on

John Brown Engineering. Even before Reagan’s announcement, letters from John Brown

69 Weston to Gillmore draft steering brief, “North Atlantic Council Meeting: Brussels 9-10 December,” November 30, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4964. 70 “Statement on the Extension of United States Sanctions on the Export of Oil and Gas Equipment to the Soviet Union,” June 18, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 798.

71 Mallaby to Bullard, “Transatlantic Relations,” July 6, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4721. 211

executives indicated that US policies jeopardized contracts valued at over £100-million.

If their planned deliveries could not begin shortly, they warned there would be “grave consequences” for the firm.72 Given the domestic impact of increased unemployment, particularly at its outpost in Scotland, the prospect worried Thatcher deeply. Writing to the president after he announced the new measures, she expressed serious reservations about the damage these new restrictions would cause John Brown. The retroactive application of these rules would force the British company to abandon “a contract which they entered into in good faith.”73 (Reagan responded to her concerns, offering a vague assertion that US information on the potential damage differed from Thatcher’s own.74)

Even Canadian officials, comparatively insulated from the expanded sanctions, worried about the broader implications of these extraterritorial provisions.75 Those in Ottawa viewed the administration’s reactions to the Polish Crisis as merely the latest in a long series of attempts to extend US laws internationally, a habit which had long been a source of frustration.76

The main damage to transatlantic relations, as Schmidt saw it, was the

“psychological/political” question raised by the latest US move. Could Washington’s partners still trust the United States? With the administration willing to disregard its

72 Chenconway to Thatcher, “Soviet Gas Pipeline,” June 8, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/943. 73 Thatcher to Reagan, June 25, 1982, MTFA, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/122940. 74 Reagan to Thatcher, July 2, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/925. 75 Allan Gotlieb, The Washington Diaries, 1981–1989 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006), 75.

76 For one example of earlier Canadian opposition to the extraterritorial application of US legislation, see Asa McKercher, Camelot and Canada: Canadian-American Relations in the Kennedy Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 60-6. 212

allies’ sentiments on the pipeline, why would any other issue be different?77 Assessments in London drew out the same theme. If harm were done to Western European businesses and workers as a result of Washington’s new round of sanctions, there would undoubtedly be considerable and lasting damage done to transatlantic relations. Such divisions would only afford Moscow an opportunity.78 Claude Cheysson minced few words when he remarked in one television interview that a “progressive divorce” was taking place between the United States and Western Europe. The two sides of the Atlantic “no longer speak the same language.” For these problems, Cheysson laid the blame squarely on the

United States. Washington, as the French foreign minister put it, “seems totally indifferent to our problems.”79

Western European reactions to the latest batch of US sanctions could not be separated from questions of their own credibility. Firms in France, the Federal Republic,

Italy, and the United Kingdom had agreed in good faith to do business with the Soviet

Union. Few saw a reason to abrogate that agreement, no matter Washington’s position.

Repeatedly, even as a solution to the crisis came together, Western European leaders returned to this theme. Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini, for example, insisted

77 “Gespräche des Bundeskanzlers Schmidt mit den Ministerpräsidenten Fälldin, Jorgensen, Sorsa, Thoroddsen und Willoch in Kiel,” June 26-27, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 194. 78 Richards to Coles, “Existing Contracts (John Brown),” June 8, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/943.

79 Flora Lewis, “France Defies Ban by U.S. on Supplies for Soviet Pipeline,” July 23, 1982, The New York Times. 213

that the contracts already negotiated must be completed to preserve the West’s credibility.80

Western European firms simply ignored the new rules. Mitterrand’s government instructed French companies to go ahead with their contracts, regardless of the US sanctions. Creuset-Loire, a French licensee of Dresser, shipped three compressors to the

Soviet Union in late August. The French oil company Compagnie Européenne des

Petroles filed suit in a Dutch court, challenging the sanctions. Thanks to the extended restrictions, a purchase they had made of seismometers was held up because

Sisemeterfabriek Sensor Nederland, the seller, was a subsidiary of a US parent.

Compagnie Européenne des Petroles’ suit asked the court to rule on the legality of US extraterritorial sanctions under Dutch law. With Western European companies now openly violating US sanctions, the tensions were obvious. The United States government would need to respond by issuing denial orders, preventing US firms from doing further business on the Siberian pipeline with their licensees and subsidiaries in Western Europe.

By late July, however, there were some (minimal) indications that the administration hoped to avoid further ruptures within NATO. George Shultz, who had replaced Haig as Secretary of State in July, expressed concern that the administration had failed to offer “a clear and cogent explanation” for the June 18 batch of sanctions.81 On

July 30, the Reagan White House announced an extension of the US-Soviet Long-Term

80 Lynn Rosellini, “Italy Backs U.S. Stand on Pipeline,” November 4, 1982, The New York Times.

81 State to Bonn, “Allied Reactions to June 18 Sanctions Decision,” July 21, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/6eb0.PDF. 214

Grains Agreement. Its continuation represented a middle ground solution: it did not increase the tonnage of trade with the Soviet Union (a move sure to inflame existing views of the administration’s sanctions as rife with double standards), but it also did not cut off ties with the Soviet Union entirely. Then, in early September, the administration planned to send James Buckley to Europe for another round of talks. But the British,

French, German, and Italian governments refused to receive Buckley, making it clear that they wanted the issue to be handled by a more senior official from the administration.

The Specter of 1983

Could the allies survive the upcoming year? Divisions over Poland threatened to boil over into other aspects of transatlantic relations, not least the impending missile deployments planned for 1983. Already, public disagreements between the allies offered the Soviets an easy issue with which to bludgeon the Alliance. Skepticism about a transatlantic rift dovetailed neatly with the Soviet Union’s popular diplomatic ploy of trying to divide Western Europe from the United States, a theme which received considerable play in the Soviet press throughout 1982.82 With 1983 now on the horizon, uncertainty about NATO’s cohesion cast a long shadow. The planned Euromissile deployments required a firm and united Alliance.83

82 Moscow to State, “Soviet Use of Economic Issues for Wedge-Driving,” April 19, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/71d5.PDF.

83 Thomas to Walden, “Transatlantic Relations,” July 29, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4722. 215

Western debates over Cold War strategy increasingly took place in public.

Genscher, in a Foreign Affairs article published in the fall, explicitly refuted Reagan’s assertion that allied unity constituted the basis of the West’s relations with the East. To

Genscher, exactly the inverse was true. If the Western allies could not agree on their approach to relations with the Warsaw Pact or on the core tenets of allied strategy—be it political, economic, or military—there would be no cohesion on which to act as an

Alliance.84 British analysts privately called Genscher’s article “a powerful statement of the classic case for détente plus military equilibrium” and a forthright and telling critique of current policy in Washington.85

Transatlantic debates about East-West relations showed little sign of resolution.

The United States, for instance, appeared disinclined to discuss anything beyond the situation in Poland at the CSCE review conference underway in Madrid. Privately,

Washington’s partners pushed for the administration to return to the conference’s earlier discussions, focused on a possible Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building

Measures and Disarmament in Europe, more often known by the less-cumbersome name the Conference on Disarmament in Europe (CDE). The proposal had already been endorsed by the United States in November 1981, but now languished due to the events that had transpired in Poland.86

84 Hans-Dietrich Genscher, “Toward an Overall Western Strategy for Peace, Freedom and Progress,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Fall 1982): 42. 85 Bullard to EESD, ““Towards an Overall Western Strategy for Peace, Freedom and Progress”,” September 22, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4709.

86 Douglas Selvage, “The Politics of the Lesser Evil: The West, the Polish Crisis, and the CSCE Review Conference in Madrid, 1981–1983,” in Crisis of Détente, 47-8. 216

Both the British and the Canadians looked to bridge the divide within NATO over the sanctions. From the outset, the Thatcher and Trudeau governments had each tried to relieve the pressure building in the Alliance. The day after Reagan’s Christmas address on

Poland, bureaucrats in London proposed an informal meeting to coordinate possible steps with their European partners.87 In February, the British had arranged a meeting with

French, German, Italian, and US representatives to try and hammer out a compromise on the existing pipeline contracts.88 Initiatives like these reflected the “special role” the

Thatcher government saw for itself as a mediating force in transatlantic relations.89

Trudeau’s team envisioned a similar role for themselves, though there was little coordination between Ottawa and London in their efforts to improve transatlantic relations. On the margins of the CSCE review conference in Madrid, Canadian foreign minister Mark MacGuigan hosted a breakfast meeting for his NATO counterparts to discuss the Western response to events in Poland.90 When NATO’s foreign ministers met in May, the Canadians proposed to host an informal gathering to discuss questions in

East-West relations that fall.91

London and Ottawa found a willing and capable partner in George Shultz.

Shultz’s appointment as Secretary of State in July 1982 offered a new opening, not least

87 Fall to Whitmore, “Poland,” December 24, 1981, TNA-UK, PREM 19/871. 88 Broomfield to Bullard, “Poland: NATO Measures,” February 1, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4959. 89 FCO steering brief, “President Reagan’s Visit to London, 7–9 June 1982, Talks with the Prime Minister, 9 am Wednesday, 9 June,” n.d. [June 1982], TNA-UK, PREM 19/943. 90 Montgomery to Goodison, “Mr MacGuigan’s NATO Breakfast,” February 17, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4960.

91 “Botschafter Wieck, z.Z. Luxemburg, and das Auswärtige Amt,” May 18, 1982, AAPD 1982 I, doc. 159. 217

because Haig’s weak position within the administration had been seen as largely detrimental to Western European interests.92 Events in Poland had only exacerbated the sense that Haig had few allies left in the White House.93 The NSC’s meeting where the additional round of June sanctions was approved, for instance, was scheduled when Haig was out of town for a meeting with Gromyko.94 (Some later histories, like Lou Cannon’s classic work President Reagan: Role of a Lifetime, have argued that the June 18 extensions were engineered to force Haig out of the administration.95) Shultz, however, was a useful ally far beyond his value as simply being anyone but Haig. He was deeply skeptical of the value of sanctions, and on the record as having said so. Shultz wanted a real solution to the issues raised by US sanctions, not a cosmetic one that would merely paper over the cracks. He found it unacceptable that the Alliance had not been able to reach any sort of common position on the question of East-West trade.96 Even before

Shultz’s appointment as Secretary of State, in May 1982, Reagan had dispatched him to tour the capitals of the G-7 nations in an effort to manage the difficulties provoked by the administration’s sanctions.97

92 Mallaby to Bullard, “Transatlantic Relations,” July 6, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4721. 93 Richards to Coles, “Poland,” February 5, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/873. 94 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 136. 95 Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 199-204. 96 “Record of a Discussion Between Secretary Shultz and the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 5.30 p.m. on 20th September, 1982 in the State Department, Washington,” TNA-UK, PREM 19/1152.

97 Even Alexander Haig saw Shultz as a valuable ally on this front. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984), 304-5. 218

MacGuigan’s first bilateral meeting with Shultz included another Canadian offer to host an informal consultation between the Western allies. Many within Pierre

Trudeau’s cabinet, alarmed by the rocky state of US-Canadian relations, saw Poland as the issue on which they could be most useful. Trudeau disagreed with the prevailing cabinet view, but the prime minister went along with the majority view despite his personal reservations.98 Accordingly, they revived a proposal for informal consultations first tabled at the G-7’s summit in Ottawa the previous year.99 The Canadian initiative evolved into an informal meeting of NATO’s foreign ministers to be held in the Quebec resort La Sapinière in October. As part of the talks, the Canadians suggested four topics for discussion: (1) Western views and goals vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and Eastern

Europe, with an eye to finding areas of consensus and agreement; (2) other major international issues, such as events in the Middle East; (3) the current state of affairs within the Alliance; and, (4) intra-Alliance consultations. It was telling that three of

Ottawa’s four areas all boiled down to the same issue; the first, third, and fourth points all dealt with how to manage relations with the East.100

At La Sapinière, the informal setting facilitated a broader discussion of the issues in East-West relations. These conversations, however, included little detailed discussion of the Siberian pipeline. Instead, the foreign ministers focused on the overall contours of

98 Mark MacGuigan oral history interview, January 19, 1988, in Trudeau’s World: Insiders Reflect on Foreign Policy, Trade, and Defence, 1968-84 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017). 99 Gotlieb to External Affairs, “SSEA Mtg with Shultz: A Cdn Proposal,” July 30, 1982, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28840, File 20-1-2-USA, Part 69.

100 UKDEL NATO to FCO, “Informal Meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers: 2-3 October,” September 15, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4749. 219

East-West relations and the importance of economic questions in that context. Francis

Pym, who succeeded Carrington as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth

Affairs in April, affirmed the need to balance a “strong enough defense” with dialogue on arms control and human rights, while Cheysson pushed for economic and political considerations to be considered in a larger strategic context. Colombo, for his part, offered a straightforward and pessimistic reminder: NATO was “not in good shape,” and at the heart of that transatlantic turmoil was a debate over East-West relations. Earlier confidence in détente, the Italian foreign minister argued, had led the West to let their defenses erode. Now, they needed to strike a better balance between détente and defense.101

Out of the informal discussions at La Sapinière emerged a ‘non-paper’ which set out a possible way forward. It suggested a series of steps, such as studies on East-West economic relations. But obstacles still remained. Within the Reagan administration, not all were convinced that the non-paper amounted to enough to justify lifting the sanctions.

Shultz pressed on, undeterred. British efforts to help bridge the transatlantic divide also continued, as Pym worked closely with Shultz to develop possible solutions that would allow the Reagan administration to walk back the sanctions with minimal damage to the president’s reputation.102 To that end, Thatcher and Pym worked to create a favorable

101 Pym to UKDEL NATO, “Informal Weekend, La Sapiniere, 2-3 October,” October 4, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4709.

102 Pym to Thatcher, “US Oil and Gas Measures (Pipeline),” September 14, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/935; Shultz-Howe memorandum of conversation, September 20, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1152. 220

political climate, assuming that Reagan would come under fire at home for giving into

European demands if the sanctions were lifted without a corresponding agreement on a common Western approach to East-West economic relations.

Against this backdrop, Schmidt’s SPD-FDP coalition collapsed after Hans-

Dietrich Genscher resigned as foreign minister in September. Genscher’s Free Democrats formed a new coalition, this time lending their support to Helmut Kohl and the Christian

Democrats. Kohl had long been a powerhouse in German politics. Richard Allen had insisted that Reagan meet Kohl during one November 1978 visit to Western Europe: “I guarantee you that when you are President, you will deal with this man as the Chancellor of Germany,” he later recalled telling a reluctant Reagan.103

Genscher’s resignation was largely motivated by concerns about whether Schmidt and the SPD could see the Dual-Track Decision through its deployment phase.104 Such concerns, however, had direct bearing on the Polish Crisis and the current rift in transatlantic relations as well. One of the central charges levied against the SPD was that they had strayed too far, preferring to treat the superpowers as two, equidistant countries.

Kohl’s new center-right coalition promised to reverse that, reaffirming once more that the

Federal Republic was a Western nation and a loyal ally.

Some uncertainty remained as to how the president would lift the sanctions.

Recommendations from the departments of State and Commerce suggested a complete

103 Richard Allen oral history interview, May 28, 2002, Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/the- presidency/presidential-oral-histories/richard-allen-oral-history-assistant-president-national.

104 On the impact of the Euromissiles on Genscher’s thinking, see Chapter 6. 221

lifting of all measures, but others within the administration felt that future US exports of oil and gas technologies should continue to be restricted. Any package that emerged from the negotiations, as the British outlined them, must include the agreed framework for developing an Alliance-wide approach to East-West relations (what was laid out in the

‘non-paper’); a final decision from the Reagan administration lifting the sanctions which impacted the Siberian pipeline; and an agreed-upon plan to present the decision publicly.

The four main European powers indicated, however, that no final decision on the public presentation of the matter could be made until Reagan had agreed to lift the sanctions.105

On November 13, Reagan announced that US sanctions would be lifted as a result of a series of new allied initiatives. The president pointed, in particular, to their mutual agreement that no new contracts would be signed to purchase Soviet natural gas while the allies conducted a review of Western energy sources and Western plans to strengthen strategic controls vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.106 Events in Poland made Reagan’s announcement all the more palatable politically; Solidarność leader Lech Wałęsa had finally been released from prison the day before Reagan’s announcement.

Against this backdrop, the Western allies also debated the value of continuing the

Madrid CSCE review conference.107 US officials maintained the view that proceedings could not take place as though it remained “business as usual.” In practice, this meant

105 Washington to FCO, “East-West Economic Relations (Pipeline), November 11, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/935. 106 Reagan remarks, “Radio Address to the Nation on East-West Trade Relations and the Soviet Pipeline Sanctions,” November 13, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 2, 1464.

107 Angela Romano, “More Cohesive, Still Divergent: Western Europe, the United States, and the Madrid CSCE Follow-Up Meeting,” in European Integration and the Atlantic Community, 39-58. 222

that any discussion at the CSCE should remain focused solely on the developments in

Poland.108 But few within the Alliance shared Washington’s single-mindedness. At

NATO’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg that May, for example, the final communiqué affirmed the Alliance’s support for the proposed CDE as part of a broader reference to the negotiations set to resume in Madrid in November.109 West German civil servants made the case for widening the scope of the CSCE, insisting that the West should not “let the Soviets off the hook” by unduly focusing on Poland.110

Finally, in November, the Reagan administration agreed to resume the CSCE talks in Madrid. To secure Washington’s participation, however, the rest of the Western allies agreed to terms which would make any final document produced by the meeting contingent on a set of conditions, including Soviet acceptance of free trade unions.111

Clear difficulties, however, still remained. Publics across the Alliance had very different expectations. One US diplomat summed up the conundrum by asking “how do we communicate in Madrid when we reconvene the sense of strong displeasure running to outrage on Poland? How do we reflect at the same time what your man Kohl feels is the

108 Bonn to State, “German Thinking on Next Steps for the CSCE,” September 27, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/6eb8.PDF. 109 Final communiqué, May 17-18, 1982, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c820517a.htm. 110 Bonn to State, “German Thinking on Next Steps for the CSCE,” September 27, 1982, Department of State Virtual Reading Room, https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/foiadocs/6eb8.PDF.

111 Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Drops Refusal to Talk to Soviet at Madrid,” November 7, 1982, The New York Times. 223

need to let his people know that we want to negotiate, that he doesn’t want a nuclear war?”112

The acrimonious transatlantic debates over how to respond to the situation in

Poland were part of a much larger debate about NATO’s Cold War strategy. As the allies developed a scheme to put the damage of the sanctions behind them, they did little to address the underlying structural questions on the management of East-West relations.

Much of the follow-on work was funneled out of NATO, using mechanisms at the G-7 and the European Community to study East-West economic relations and related questions regarding Western energy supplies. Throughout the West, allied officials warned that the same problems could easily crop up again. So long as the West continued to function without a cohesive strategy, Cheysson expected that disagreements over how to handle East-West relations would resurface.113 Oliver Wright concurred. The transatlantic disputes over the pipeline were merely a symptom of a much larger divergence in the Alliance about the impact of economic ties with the Soviet Union. The

Western Europeans had failed to appreciate the extent to which many Americans— including in the White House—believed that economic relations had facilitated the

Kremlin’s military buildup. “Americans,” the British ambassador in Washington

112 James M. Markham, “NATO Aides Plan Strategy for Madrid Policy,” October 17, 1982, The New York Times.

113 Thomson to FCO, “Quadripartite Ministerial Dinner on 29 September: East/West Relations,” September 30, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/759. 224

concluded, “find it difficult to understand that West European perspectives on trade with

Eastern Europe are different from their own.”114

In late November, Pym recommended that the allies consider issuing a separate statement outlining NATO’s approach to East-West relations at their upcoming meeting.

The British foreign minister saw a window in which the allies might act. Beyond the successful resolution of the Siberian pipeline issue, he saw the changes currently taking place in the Soviet Union as a reason to send a clear signal. Brezhnev’s death in

November 1982 gave rise to hopes for a new political climate in Moscow.115 Shultz, though amenable to a reaffirmation of allied strategy in the communiqué, rejected the possibility of a separate document. He feared it might open up “a counter-productive debate within the Alliance.”116

Conclusion

Fears about divided strategies within the Atlantic Alliance were real. “It is not an exaggeration,” one observer wrote in May 1983, “to conclude that the Reagan administration’s determination to abort ten years of détente between East and West

Europe precipitated a political crisis within the alliance that is potentially more serious

114 Wright to Pym, “The Siberian Pipeline: Lessons for the Future,” December 10, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 33/5362. 115 FCO to Washington, “East-West Relations,” November 18, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4709.

116 Washington to FCO, “East-West Relations,” November 22, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4709. 225

than anything that has occurred since the Suez episode in 1956.”117 Reagan’s response to the introduction of martial law in Poland—and, in particular, the sanctions on oil and gas technologies—represented an attempt to restrict détente in Europe, not just between the superpowers.

The imposition of martial law in Poland reopened the strategic questions raised by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan two years earlier, though Reagan’s sanctions gave the issues a new inflection and urgency. Within the Alliance, debates over how to manage the

Cold War grew increasingly contentious. More often than not, these debates amounted to a competition between the visions of Bonn and Washington. Developments in East-West relations ensured that the Federal Republic would be the “cynosure of the Atlantic and

European arenas,” according to one US intelligence briefing.118 In developing a response to martial law in Poland, the basic questions revolved around economic relations with the

East. Accordingly, they struck at the heart of Ostpolitik as it had been conceived of under

Brandt and Schmidt. Osthandel had been the linchpin of Bonn’s overtures with the East, and Reagan’s challenge of those ties provoked a predictably sharp response. Schmidt’s objections could not go ignored, as the Federal Republic remained the most important basing country for the deployment of US missiles to Western Europe. The Alliance thus found itself being pulled between two poles: “the present negative US attitude” and

117 Donald E. Nuechterlein, “Convergence and Divergence in the North Atlantic Relationship,” The World Today, Vol. 39, No. 5 (May 1983): 164.

118 Acting National Intelligence Officer for Western Europe memorandum, “A Perspective on Western Europe, 1982,” January 13, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP83T00966R000100010049-7. 226

Bonn’s “nostalgia for the days of détente.”119 Both Schmidt and Genscher pushed for a reaffirmation of Harmel’s double philosophy, whereas Reagan and his team hoped to leave the détente of the 1970s behind.

In 1982, and even today, worries about a transatlantic rift overshadowed the elements of continuity in Western policy. None of the debates, however contentious, revolved around whether there was value in doing business with the Soviets. Instead, the allies disagreed over the terms of engagement. “Of course,” as Thatcher later remarked in her memoirs, “all of us wanted both strong defense and successful negotiations with the

Soviet Union to reduce the level of armaments.” The question up for debate was “which should come first.”120 US policy in the aftermath of martial law in Poland reinforced perceptions of the administration as hardline and bent on confrontation with Moscow. But these images of the administration also studiously overlooked the channels of communication that remained open between Moscow and Washington regardless.

Reagan, like Carter before him, refused to let events in Poland—and Moscow’s perceived role therein—impact the arms control negotiations underway with the Soviet Union. At the NSC’s meeting on December 22, 1981, postponing the INF negotiations had been floated as a possible response to the introduction of martial law.121 Even as the administration sought to punish Moscow for Jaruzelski’s declaration, the president

119 Walden, Gergorin et al. note of discussion, November 8, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4699. 120 Thatcher, Downing Street Years, 258.

121 N S C m e e t i n g s u m m a r y r e c o r d , D e c e m b e r 2 2 , 1 9 8 1 , N A R A , C R E S T, C I A - RDP84B00049R000200330001-8. 227

rejected extending this retribution to include arms control talks. With the deployment of

US Pershing IIs and cruise missiles to Western Europe imminent, these negotiations became the driving force shaping East-West and West-West relations. 228

Chapter 6: “No Euroshimas”

“You can’t hug your child with nuclear arms.”1 — Anti-nuclear slogan, 1983

“Pacifism is in the West and the Euromissiles are in the East.”2 — François Mitterrand, 1983

On the night of November 20, 1983, millions watched as nuclear war broke out between

NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Luckily, it was fictional. ABC’s made-for-TV movie, The

Day After, depicted the destruction of Kansas City and Lawrence after tensions in Europe boiled over into a nuclear conflagration.3 The film’s graphic depictions left viewers with an inescapable conclusion: next time, it might not be fake. By 1983, Western popular culture was rife with anxieties about the possibility that a nuclear war might break out.

Audiences watched as an American teenager, David (played by Matthew Broderick), accessed a military computer and nearly triggered the US nuclear force in the film

WarGames.4 Nena topped the charts with “99 Luftballoons,” an upbeat tune depicting a nuclear war triggered by errant balloons. Pulitzer Prize–winning Cornell astronomer Carl

Sagan, whose 1980 television series Cosmos had been viewed worldwide, now warned of

1 “Americans March to Oppose Missiles,” October 23, 1983, The New York Times. 2 Quoted in Gérard, “La dynamique du mouvement de paix,” 19. 3 The Day After, directed by Nicholas Meyer (1983).

4 WarGames, directed by John Badham (1983). 228 229

a nuclear winter which would result in the end of human life on Earth should a nuclear exchange take place.5

Against this backdrop, NATO prepared to deploy Pershing IIs and ground- launched cruise missiles to Western Europe. The debates over the Euromissile deployments intersected with and contributed to larger conversations about the importance of détente and the continued relevance of the Harmel strategy, already opened by the transatlantic disputes over Afghanistan and Poland. Public opposition to the deployments on both sides of the Atlantic placed pressure on NATO’s member governments to articulate a clear—and crucially, moderate—strategy for how to handle

East-West relations. So long as the start of the Euromissile deployments could be derailed by this popular resistance, however, most in the Alliance hesitated to push for a truly comprehensive NATO strategy. The incremental steps they took throughout 1983 to address public anxieties and ensure sufficient support for the deployments, however, set the tone for a larger strategic reevaluation over the winter of 1983–1984. Ultimately, this process culminated in the Washington Statement on East-West Relations, unveiled in

May 1984, which explicitly reaffirmed the two-pronged approach first adopted in the

Harmel Report.

5 Carl Sagan, “Nuclear War and Climactic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Winter 1983-1984): 257-92. On Sagan and the concept of nuclear winter, see Wilfried Mausbach, “Nuclear Winter: Prophecies of Doom and Images of Desolation during the Second Cold War,” in Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s, ed. Eckart Conze, Martin Klimke, and Jeremy Varon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 27-54. 230

The Nuclear Nightmare

“Led by a bearded flutist, in a buoyant atmosphere of balloons, banners, and anti-nuclear chants,” hundreds of thousands marched through New York City on June 12, 1982 during the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament. Marching from the United Nations headquarters to Central Park, protestors’ banners and buttons encouraged passersby to

“Glow Spiritually, Not Radioactively” and “End the Arms Race, Not the Human Race.”6

One little girl carried a sign proclaiming “I Hate Nuclear War.” Another protestor marched with an inflatable whale, asking onlookers to “Save the Humans.” Some

750,000 people gathered, coming from near and far: from Hiroshima, from across

Western Europe, from Brooklyn, even a set of hitchhikers from Quebec. Jackson Browne,

Bruce Springsteen, and James Taylor performed; Coretta Scott King addressed the vast crowd.7

Public opposition to nuclear weapons grew dramatically in the early 1980s, seen in countless marches like the June 12 rally in New York City. Environmentalists, pacifists, women’s rights activists, Marxists, scientists, evangelicals, students, and organized labor alike all expressed grave concerns about the nuclear arms race. Some were veteran activists, involved in earlier movements against the Vietnam War, US policies in Latin America, or the earlier anti-nuclear campaigns of the late 1950s and

6 Joyce Wadler and Merrill Brown, “New York Rally Draws Half-Million,” June 13, 1982, The Washington Post.

7 Paul M. Montgomery, “Throngs Fill Manhattan to Protest Nuclear Weapons: Hundreds of Thousands Throng Manhattan to Protest Nuclear Arms,” June 13, 1982, The New York Times. 231

early 1960s. Others were of a new generation, alarmed by the resurgent dangers of the

Cold War and the threat of “a game of suicidal leapfrog with the Russians.”8

Large demonstrations and rallies grabbed headlines, as citizens throughout the

West “protest[ed] the nuclear nightmare” in record numbers.9 Protest cruises sailed Dutch canals in a ten-day “cruise against cruise.”10 Protestors at Mutlangen, one of the planned deployment sites in the Federal Republic, hung a banner reading “Pershing Macht Frei” over the base’s entrance. The implications were clear: as far as they were concerned, the

US base was a site of comparable evil to a Nazi concentration camp.11 The Campaign for

Nuclear Disarmament held the largest rally in the organization’s twenty-five year history in April 1983, as tens of thousands created a human chain through the “nuclear valley,” connecting Greenham Common (one of the planned basing sites for US cruise missiles) to Aldermaston, the home of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, and

Burghfield’s Royal Ordnance Factory.12

8 Ground Zero letter, n.d., LAC, MG28 I 445, Vol. 14, “Ground Zero corr + related material nd 1981-1983” folder. 9 Flyer for June 12, 1982 march, MUL, Canadian Peace Congress fonds, Box 18, “Disarmament – Demonstrations – 12 June, NYC” folder. 10 The Hague to State, “Rotterdam Demonstration Against TNF and ERW,” August 20, 1981, RRPL, Sven Kraemer Files, Box 90103, “NATO - Anti-Nuclear Soviet Fronts 1” folder. 11 Susanne Schregel, “The Spaces and Places of the Peace Movement,” in The Nuclear Crisis: The Arms Race, Cold War Anxiety, and the German Peace Movement of the 1980s, ed. Christoph Becker-Schaum et al. (New York: Berghahn, 2016), 177. See also Eckart Conze, “Missile Bases as Concentration Camps: The Role of National Socialism, the Second Cold War, and the Holocaust in the West German Discourse on Nuclear Armament,” in Nuclear Threats, 79-97.

12 Like many demonstrations of this kind, estimates of the event’s total turnout varied widely. Estimates provided by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament estimated that 100,000 were in attendance, while police figures placed the total at a much lower 40,000. Nicholas Timmins, “Thousands of hands link in CND rally,” April 2, 1983, The Times. 232

Often dismissed as communist stooges or dupes, Western peace activists were not simply tools of Moscow. The Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies did fund Western protest groups, seeing the peace movement as an opportunity to break the Alliance and stop the INF deployments. Such funding made it all too easy to dismiss anti-nuclear activists as nothing more than Soviet puppets.13 But public fears about the dangers of nuclear weapons were not, as Eugene Rostow memorably put it in 1982, “a mysterious phenomenon, a plague visited on us from the heavens, or a hobgoblin created by Soviet propaganda.” Instead, an increasing number of Western citizens had come to appreciate something long understood by policy-makers: nuclear war was a terrible prospect—and a possible one.14 The steady deterioration of East-West relations, along with technological advancements in nuclear weaponry, made these fears more acute.

Even if the United States and the Soviet Union could be trusted not to start a nuclear war, the seeming lack of dialogue between the two superpowers might lead to one anyway. Fears of an accidental nuclear war, triggered by either a miscalculation or a technical malfunction, mounted throughout the early 1980s. One protest song, sung by demonstrators at the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common, included the verse:

No cruise missiles wanted here today (x2) Cos if one computer Component should decay

13 For the NATO allies, this created additional problems about how best to respond. While they were keen to expose Soviet disinformation campaigns and “active measures,” many of the European allies worried that doing so would only alienate public opinion further. See “NATO: Reciprocity and “Active Measures”,” November 24, 1981, RRPL, European and Soviet Affairs Directorate—NSC Files, RAC Box 11, “NATO (1980-02/02/1983)” folder.

14 Rostow remarks, “The Great Nuclear Debate,” May 25, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA- RDP84B00049R001800210036-6. 233

There’d be nore (sic) more people Left around to say15

The prospect that nuclear war might be triggered by accident had its roots in real events.

On November 9, 1979, warning messages appeared at military installations across the

United States: the Soviets, it seemed, had fired off submarine-launched missiles, followed by a series of strikes from the Soviet heartland. These missiles would hit the United

States within minutes. The missiles never came; a technician had triggered the alerts, placing the wrong tape—a scenario from a war game—into the system.16 A similar incident occurred in the summer of 1980 when a computer chip failed, sending out a series of false warnings about an impending Soviet nuclear strike. Newspaper coverage of these incidents highlighted the rudimentary issues which could trigger a nuclear conflagration. Of the 1980 false alarms, the New York Times summed it up with the headline “Missile Alerts Traced to 46¢ Item.”17

Critics insisted that the deployments called for in the Dual-Track Decision would only intensify the arms race between the two superpowers. Already, the total destructive power of US and Soviet nuclear stockpiles seemed far beyond anything needed as a deterrent. The ominously titled pamphlet This is the way the world will end, this is the way you will end, unless described Washington’s arsenal as the equivalent of some

15 Song lyrics, “No Cruise Missiles,” n.d., The Women’s Library at the London School of Economics (TWL-LSE), 5GCC, B/15. 16 Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (New York: The Penguin Press, 2013), 365-7.

17 “Missile Alerts Traced to 46¢ Item,” June 18, 1980, The New York Times. 234

615,000 Little Boys, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945.18 At anti- nuclear demonstrations in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Reagan

figured prominently as the avatar of these fears. Protestors marched with papier-mâché

Reagans and mock cruise missiles. One German artist, Joseph Beuys, scored a hit with the German peace movement with a song entitled “Sonne statt Reagan”—Sun Instead of

Reagan (a play off of the similarities between rain—regen—and Reagan in German).19

Placards and posters denounced the administration as hyper-militant and bent on fighting the Soviets. “Reagan Is A Bomb - Both Should Be Banned,” proclaimed one such banner.20

Psychologically, the fears circulating about the prospect of nuclear war were bound up with larger questions about US credibility, leadership, and strategic foresight.

Protesting NATO’s nuclear policies and, in particular, the deployments called for in the

Dual-Track Decision was part of a larger public rejection of transatlantic principles, namely the centrality of the United States in providing for Western defense. US security policies faced a crisis of confidence throughout the Alliance, as more and more citizens saw little difference between the policies pursued in Moscow and in Washington.21 More

18 Harold Freeman, This is the way the world will end, this is the way you will end, unless (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1982), 21. 19 Saskia Richter, “The Protagonists of the Peace Movement,” in The Nuclear Crisis: The Arms Race, Cold War Anxiety, and the German Peace Movement of the 1980s, ed. Christoph Becker-Schaum et al. (New York: Berghahn, 2016), 198. 20 Paul M. Montgomery, “Throngs Fill Manhattan to Protest Nuclear Weapons: Hundreds of Thousands Throng Manhattan to Protest Nuclear Arms,” June 13, 1982, The New York Times.

21 Lukens memorandum, “Reflections on the Mood in Europe,” December 16, 1983, NARA, CREST, CIA- RDP88T00146R000300250006-1. 235

often than not, activists were motivated more by a sense of anti-Americanism than any single issue, the Euromissiles included.22

Eroding public support for the INF deployments, along with the anti-American tone of the peace movement, helped convince Hans-Dietrich Genscher that Schmidt’s

SPD could no longer see the deployments through in the Federal Republic. The solution,

Genscher concluded, was to break the existing Social-Liberal coalition. Instead, his

Liberals could join with Helmut Kohl and the conservative CDU to establish a center- right coalition, committed to deploying the Euromissiles. On September 17, 1982,

Genscher resigned as foreign minister and withdrew the Liberals from the SPD-FDP coalition.23 The new Kohl government, like Schmidt’s before it, continued to place pressure on the United States to negotiate in earnest with the Soviet Union. Doing so would be essential to maintaining sufficient public support in Germany.

Repeatedly, at home and abroad, the Reagan administration tried to counteract the prevailing image of US belligerence. Project Truth, the USICA’s efforts to counter Soviet disinformation and propaganda, focused much of their early attention on “trying to influence the younger generation in Europe.”24 National Security Decision Directives were drafted to deal with international information and public diplomacy.25 In the spring

22 Holger Nehring and Benjamin Ziemann have referred to this as a “‘master frame’ of anti-Americanism.” Holger Nehring and Benjamin Ziemann, “Do all paths lead to Moscow? The NATO dual-track decision and the peace movement – a critique,” Cold War History, Vol. 12, No. 1 (February 2012): 8. 23 Jeffrey Herf, War by Other Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 160. 24 Wick, Robinson et. al memorandum of conversation, “U.S. Response to Polish Crisis,” December 21, 1981, RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9422, “Poland” folder.

25 Lord to Gergen, “Information NSDDs,” Mach 19, 1982, RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9421, “NSDD 77 [Management of Public Diplomacy]” folder. 236

of 1982, the Reagan administration launched a peace offensive hoping to combat the

Nuclear Freeze movement at home and the ongoing peace protests abroad. As part of these plans, National Security Adviser William Clark drew up a three-pronged strategy to address these public opinion difficulties. The administration needed to ramp up its efforts to convey the president’s arms control strategy, echoing the themes laid out in his April

17 radio address on nuclear weapons. They should meet with activists to underscore the idea that they appreciated public concerns and demonstrate the administration’s “good faith and reasonableness.” Finally, the president himself should address arms control issues in a number of high-profile speeches, including his May address at Eureka College and his remarks before traveling to Europe the next month. From Clark’s perspective, it remained crucial that the administration not contribute to what policy-makers termed “a

‘we/they’ syndrome” in which they squared off against anyone in favor of a nuclear freeze. Instead, they must demonstrate their own concerns about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Any administration effort, as Clark put it, should demonstrate that “we, too, are activists.”26 Reagan, in his radio address on nuclear weapons, had already offered a simple message to those protesting the dangers of nuclear war: “I’m with you.”27

Much of the White House’s peace offensive boiled down to a public relations campaign, designed first and foremost to overcome the president’s negative image

26 Clark to Meese, Baker, and Deaver, “Policy Offensive on Arms Control and the Anti-Nuclear Movement,” April 22, 1982, RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9422, “Nuclear [Freeze] (1 of 8)” folder. Similar rhetoric could be found throughout the Alliance. In February 1983, for instance, Thatcher remarked to Kohl that “we were the true disarmers” for proposing to abolish a whole class of nuclear weapons: Thatcher-Kohl et. al. memorandum of conversation, 11:00, February 4, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1037.

27 Reagan remarks, “Radio Address to the Nation on Nuclear Weapons,” April 17, 1982, PPP: RR 1982, vol. 1, 487. 237

worldwide. It was no coincidence that this peace offensive occurred simultaneously with the administration’s efforts to shift the allied consensus regarding the Harmel Report’s double philosophy. Changing public perceptions of the president would, they hoped, diminish pressures on Washington’s allies, thereby making it easier for the White House to secure its own foreign policy goals. Aides recommended that every possible opportunity be used to create “visuals which show [Reagan] to be the concerned, caring individual he is,” recommending photo ops with Mother Theresa as one possible option.28

From Bonn, the US Public Affairs Officer recommended that the 1982 NATO Summit center around the theme of peace. Doing so would draw attention to NATO’s role as an alliance for peace, thereby helping the president to improve his position vis-à-vis the

European peace movement.29 Reagan’s entire June 1982 trip to Europe had been designed with public diplomacy considerations in mind.

Anti-nuclear campaigns, like the one spearheaded across the United States by the activist group Ground Zero, threatened to increase support for arms control proposals deemed unacceptable by the administration. As part of the administration-wide effort to change the president’s image, they also worked to debunk the notion of a freeze by highlighting the strategic flaws in such a proposal. If the West accepted a freeze at current levels, the administration argued, it threatened to decouple the defense of Western Europe

28 “Possible Activities Regarding the Anti-Nuclear Movement,” n.d. [1982], RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9422, “Nuclear [Freeze] (1 of 8)” folder.

29 Wick to Baker et al., “Public Affairs Issues Relating to President Reagan’s Visit to Europe June 2,” May 20, 1982, RRPL, David Gergen Files, Box OA 9422, “Nuclear [Freeze] (2 of 8)” folder. 238

from the US nuclear umbrella. A freeze, in other words, could make worse “the very fear” that had brought about the Dual-Track Decision in the first place.30

The administration’s peace offensive failed to change the hearts and minds of many. Reagan’s commencement address at Eureka College, intended to evoke comparisons to Kennedy’s ‘world peace’ speech at American University in 1963, did little to move the needle.31 Gallup polls showed that some 30% of respondents still felt

Reagan’s policies increased the prospect that a nuclear conflict might break out.32 US policy in Europe faced the “same old strains” of opposition: public fears of nuclear annihilation, anti-American sentiment, and emotionally charged arguments against the

Euromissile deployments.33 At home, the Nuclear Freeze movement achieved concrete successes as voters from California to Rhode Island voted in favor of a freeze in referenda held during the 1982 midterm elections.34

Brezhnev’s death in November 1982 and the appointment of a new General

Secretary, the longtime head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, represented a challenge to the

West’s position. His style and presentation seemed more dynamic and carefully calibrated

30 “A Freeze would Undermine American Leadership of NATO,” n.d. [1982], RRPL, Morton Blackwell Files, Box 15, “Nuclear Freeze (2 of 16)” folder. 31 Wheeler to Bremer, Meehan et al., “President’s Trip to Europe — Public Affairs Campaign,” May 10, 1982, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP83M00914R003000110011-9. 32 Hughes to Eagleburger, “Public Remains Skeptical of Administration’s Intent Regarding Nuclear Weapons Policy,” September 1, 1982, RRPL, Dennis C. Blair Files, RAC Box 4, Folder “Public Diplomacy 1982 (September 1982) (1/2).” 33 Handwritten notes, “Public Diplomacy,” June 24, 1982, RRPL, Dennis C. Blair Files, Box 4, “Public Diplomacy 1982 (June–August 1982)” folder.

34 In the November 1982 midterm elections, the nuclear freeze resolution passed in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, and Rhode Island. John Herbers, “Widespread Vote Urges Nuclear Freeze,” November 4, 1982, The New York Times. 239

than Brezhnev’s had been. Andropov’s first address to the Central Committee as General

Secretary on November 22, for instance, was deemed by NATO’s Political Committee to be “less strident” than his predecessor’s had been. Western officials concluded that

Andropov hoped to create the impression that Soviet policy was now even more flexible and reasonable.35 Shortly thereafter, Soviet negotiators also tabled a new proposal in the

Geneva talks on INF. If the United States agreed to cancel its planned deployments of

Pershing IIs and ground-launched cruise missiles, Moscow offered to reduce the number of SS-20s already deployed to 162. These remaining SS-20s in the Soviet proposal would match the number of British and French systems already in theater. In essence, it differed only slightly from proposals already discussed by the lead US negotiator Paul Nitze and his Soviet counterpart, Yuli Kvitsinsky.

The latest Soviet offer was unacceptable to the Thatcher and Mitterrand governments. Preventing the inclusion of their own systems remained the utmost priority.

Andropov’s proposal also retained many of the same problems as earlier Soviet positions: the proposal did not include global restraints, meaning that Soviet missiles in Siberia would be left unchecked. Restrictions on INF in Asia mattered from Washington’s perspective as it impacted the security concerns of key East Asian partners. George

Shultz quipped that the proposal was like “giving you the sleeves from your vest.”36

35 Political Committee report, “The New Leadership in the Soviet Union,” December 2, 1982, NATO, PO/ 82/142.

36 Steven Strasser, Robert B. Cullen, and John Walcott, “Andropov Aims At the Zero Option,” January 3, 1983, Newsweek. 240

Andropov’s proposal, however flawed from the West’s perspective, had

“superficial attractiveness.” Across the Alliance, this latest Soviet move was seen as a direct threat to NATO’s position.37 From Bonn, Arthur Burns warned of a pessimism growing in West German political circles. Many felt that the Soviet Union had “captured the initiative” in the INF talks with Andropov’s latest proposal.38 The Soviet offer accordingly intensified pressure on the United States to revise its negotiating position.

Reagan’s zero option, now over a year old, increasingly came to be seen as evidence that the administration would not negotiate in earnest with the Soviet Union. British officials worried that public opinion might “turn against them” unless Reagan adopted a more flexible position.39 Hans-Dietrich Genscher broke ranks with the Kohl government’s position in early January, urging the United States to table an interim proposal in Geneva.

Though ultimately forced to walk his statement back by Kohl, the foreign minister’s break reflected just how politically charged the issue had become in the Federal Republic.

With a parliamentary election on the horizon in March, the election’s outcome could determine whether the Federal Republic would go ahead with the deployments.

The Social Democrats had changed their tune on the deployments. Schmidt’s party had been instrumental in developing the Dual-Track Decision, but widespread

37 “Talking Points: INF and START,” March 18, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28252, File 27-4-NATO-1-INF, Part 1. 38 Burns to Shultz draft memorandum, January 19, 1983, GFPL, Arthur F. Burns Papers, Box U3, “Memoranda and Notes to the File Letter to Sec. Shultz Regarding Arms Control, 1/19/1983” folder.

39 “Note of a discussion at Chequers on Sunday 30th January 1983 at 10.30 am,” February 1, 1983, TNA- UK, PREM 19/979. 241

skepticism of the deployments’ value had gained ground, particularly after the collapse of

Schmidt’s government. These impulses were already clear in the earlier intra-party debates on nuclear questions, such as Egon Bahr’s outspoken critiques of the neutron bomb and the Euromissiles. In April 1982, Schmidt’s wing of the party had managed to secure a motion at the SPD’s party congress that a final decision on the INF deployments be deferred until a later date. By deferring the decision, the argument went, they could assess the state of the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union before making a final choice. Now out of power, many in the SPD saw little reason to continue supporting NATO’s decision—even Schmidt carefully worked to distance himself from the Dual-Track Decision.

The SPD opted to make the Euromissile deployments the core foreign policy issue in the upcoming federal elections. In part, the emphasis was a result of internal politicking between the party’s various branches and factions. Hans-Jochen Vogel, the

SPD’s parliamentary leader, called for the United States to abandon its maximalist zero option position and offer a more constructive proposal to negotiate before a party rally in

January. A member of the SPD’s Executive Committee was quoted as saying that an INF agreement would be impossible so long as Caspar Weinberger remained in the administration.

Concerned by the political atmosphere emerging in the Federal Republic, François

Mitterrand made a historic address before the Bundestag on January 20. Delivered on the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the historic Elysée Treaty between the two 242

countries, Mitterrand’s remarks centered around two major themes. First, the French president underscored the need to see through the deployments called for in NATO’s

Dual-Track Decision. Second, he affirmed France’s commitment to the Atlantic Alliance

—and to the Federal Republic, in particular—regardless of Paris’ cherished independent position in the West.40

Reagan’s team, alarmed by the Dual-Track Decision’s obvious fragility, continued their efforts to change the president’s public image. Over the course of 1983, the Reagan administration repeatedly dispatched Vice President George H.W. Bush to make the case for the president’s commitment to arms control. In late January, he headed to Western

Europe, making stops in Belgium, France, Italy, the Federal Republic, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, as well as in Geneva to meet with the INF negotiators. On stop after stop, Bush heard the same message: the administration must take seriously the idea of an interim negotiating position. Doing so, allied leaders believed, would help reduce public opposition to the deployments by underscoring the US commitment to reaching an agreement with the Kremlin.41

Bush kicked off his trip in the Federal Republic, mounting a strong public defense of the administration’s approach to arms control. Standing before a crowd in West Berlin,

Bush dismissed arguments that the INF deployments were intended to fight a limited nuclear war in Europe and pushed back on the tendency to portray the Dual-Track

40 Frédéric Bozo, “France, the Euromissiles, and the End of the Cold War,” in Euromissile Crisis, 200-3.

41 George to Dam, “Next Steps on INF,” March 9, 1983, RRPL, Ronald Lehman Files, RAC Box 9, “INF Materials for Lehman (4 of 6)” folder. 243

Decision as an initiative spearheaded by Washington. The deployment of new missiles,

Bush reminded his audience, had been a response to European concerns.42 That same day, the first of the vice president’s twelve-day tour, Reagan sent an open letter to the General

Secretary, offering to meet Andropov “whenever and wherever” to sign an agreement which eliminated INF.43 Bush ended his speech in West Berlin, reading aloud from the president’s letter.

The vice president’s remarks while in Europe raised hopes that the Reagan administration might introduce a new proposal in Geneva. The zero option was not, as

Bush had remarked on one stop, “a take it or leave it proposal.” His phrase captured the public’s imagination.44 Reagan’s zero option had served as a short-term fix, reducing pressure on allied governments over the INF deployments. But the proposal merely kicked the proverbial can down the road. The November 1981 proposal did not tackle any of the structural issues caused by the Dual-Track Decision’s paired approach. Presciently,

British officials had warned that the proposal would contribute to “unrealistic expectations in the public mind” that would only cause additional problems if negotiations failed to achieve any tangible results by 1983.45

42 Bonn to FCO, “Bush’s Speech in Berlin,” February 1, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1152. 43 “Letter to the People of Europe on Arms Control Reductions,” January 31, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1984), 155. 44 Thatcher to Reagan, February 18, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979.

45 Gillmore to Hastie-Smith, “The Zero Option,” November 13, 1981, TNA-UK, FCO 46/2707. 244

Tabling a new negotiating position on INF needed to be carefully managed. It must be simple and easily explained, retaining zero-zero as its long-term objective.46 Any new proposal, administration officials argued, should not be presented as the result of external pressure, be it as “a forced response to an unserious Soviet proposal” or a reaction to lobbying within the Alliance. Either could undercut the proposal’s intended purpose as a sign of the ongoing US commitment to genuine negotiations.47 On March

30, Reagan unveiled a new interim proposal. Nitze would pursue a global reduction to an unspecified level, though not zero. At the same time, the Reagan administration would continue to maintain the zero option as the “ideal” outcome of any negotiations.48 “When it comes to intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe,” as Reagan described the administration’s new proposal, “it would be better to have none than to have some. But if there must be some, it is better to have few than to have many.”49 In effect, the Reagan administration adopted a two-pronged approach. They retained the earlier benefits of the zero option, yet responded to public and domestic political pressures throughout the

Alliance which pushed for a more flexible negotiating position. Without specifying a ceiling, the March interim proposal ensured maximum flexibility.

46 George to Dam, “Next Steps on INF,” March 9, 1983, RRPL, Ronald Lehman Files, RAC Box 9, “INF Materials for Lehman (4 of 6)” folder. 47 “Talking Points on INF Letter and Defense Speech,” n.d. [1983], RRPL, Ronald Lehman Files, RAC Box 9, “INF Materials for Lehman (1 of 6)” folder. 48 Defence Relations Division memorandum, “Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces,” April 21, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28252, File 27-4-NATO-1-INF, Part 1.

49 Reagan remarks, March 30, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 1, 473. 245

The interim proposal’s unveiling was carefully stage-managed to project an image of allied cohesion with Reagan at its center. Reagan’s announcement was nationally televised. Prior to making his public remarks, Reagan met with the ambassadors of

NATO countries, a meeting later referenced in Reagan’s speech as illustrative of ongoing allied consultation.50 Everything was designed to project “the maximum symbolic and visual demonstration of allied unity.” Meeting with the NATO ambassadors, Reagan’s foreign policy team was well represented: Reagan, Bush, Shultz, Weinberger, and Clark were all in attendance. (“Lesser mortals,” Wright quipped in his cable to London,

“occupied the outer circle.”) Press photographers documented the occasion.51

Despite the administration’s ongoing efforts, Reagan’s reputation as a warmonger persisted. If anything, the events of March 1983 only confirmed some of the very worst fears about the administration’s foreign policy. On March 8, before an audience at the

National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Reagan made his infamous and oft- quoted reference to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” His hopes for the “total elimination” of nuclear weapons, also expressed in the speech, went ignored.52 Later that month, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a space-based system designed to destroy strategic weapons before they could strike the United States.53 “Star

Wars,” as the scheme quickly became known, galvanized peace protestors. With its calls

50 Reagan remarks, March 30, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 1, 473. 51 Wright to FCO, “My Telno 800: INF,” March 30, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979. 52 Reagan remarks, National Association of Evangelicals, Orlando, March 8, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 1, 364.

53 Reagan remarks, “Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security,” March 23, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 1, 442. 246

to shoot weapons out of the sky, it seemed to neatly encapsulate the insanity of the nuclear arms race.

An “Existential Stress-Test”

Even before the Dual-Track Decision was taken in December 1979, many in the West viewed it as a litmus test for the Alliance’s health and cohesion. INF served as “a valuable method” to demonstrate the West’s solidarity and support for “a collective deterrent strategy” among the Alliance’s nuclear and non-nuclear powers.54 As public pressure mounted during the early 1980s, the ability to see the INF deployments through took on even greater significance as a test of NATO’s strength and the reliability of individual member governments. Helmut Kohl’s government, for instance, was determined to prove that the “Germans were not hikers between two worlds.”55

Widespread opposition to the Dual-Track Decision threatened to derail its implementation entirely. Governments in the basing countries—Belgium, Italy, the

Federal Republic, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom—all faced an uphill battle, trying to ensure the necessary public support for the deployments. Thatcher’s government worried that they might be losing the public relations debate over cruise missile deployments.56 Both Belgium and the Netherlands continued to defer a final decision on whether to host the missiles due to considerable domestic opposition. Not only the

54 “Guideline for Further Examination of NATO’s Theater Nuclear Capabilities,” March 31, 1981, NATO, IMSWM-086-81. 55 “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Ministerpräsident Lubbers,” January 25, 1983, AAPD 1983 I, doc. 17.

56 Pym to Thatcher, “Nuclear Weapons and Public Opinion,” 7 Jan. 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1690. 247

deployment ‘track’ faced obstacles. So long as the peace movement continued to be an active force in Western politics, the opportunity remained for Moscow to prevent the deployments without needing to negotiate. Between 1979 and 1983, the rhetoric used by allied policy-makers to justify the INF deployments often cast them as a regrettable outcome to be avoided if at all possible.57 This framing looked to engender optimism by highlighting the prospect that the deployments might not occur, but only if the Soviet

Union were willing to negotiate fairly. Implicitly, however, this rhetoric also recognized and drew attention to the Dual-Track Decision’s inherent fragility.

To survive the “existential stress-test” of 1983, the Alliance needed to project cohesion and a commitment to peace. Hans-Georg Wieck, cabling from Brussels in

January, had called for an active East-West dialogue—in arms control negotiations, at the

CSCE in Madrid, and a Reagan-Andropov summit—and a stronger public diplomacy campaign regarding the ill-effects of unilateral disarmament.58 Even if NATO did ultimately see the INF deployments through, the dissatisfaction expressed by anti-nuclear activists caused many to wonder whether the Alliance still resonated with Western publics. Would allied governments be able to continue winning sufficient public support for future difficult decisions?59

57 Laurens Hogebrink, “The Battle of Geneva,” September 1983, LSE, END 19/24, “3 of 3” folder. 58 “Botschafter Wieck, Brüssel (NATO), an das Auswärtige Amt,” January 4, 1983, AAPD 1983 I (München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2014), doc. 2.

59 Adler and Wertman draft paper, “West European Security Concerns for the Eighties: Is NATO in Trouble?,” RRPL, Blair Files, RAC Box 4, “Public Diplomacy 1981 (March 1981–June 1981)” folder. 248

Allied leaders, as they had in the 1970s, worried that their citizens did not understand NATO or its policies. Surveys done by the United States Information Agency in the summer of 1983, for example, showed that public opinion in most of the basing countries rejected NATO’s core arguments justifying the deployment of the Euromissiles.

Only ten percent of respondents knew that Moscow had a monopoly on INF.60 Anti- nuclear activism seemed a harbinger of much larger problems. Officials wondered in particular about the possible deterioration of NATO’s reputation amongst the youngest generation of Western citizens. Youth, they feared, no longer appreciated the importance of the transatlantic partnership.61 Such speculation echoed the fears seen in the 1970s, pointing to the formative experiences of this latest generation as cause for concern. The youth of the 1980s, much like their predecessors a decade earlier, did not remember the founding of NATO or the Marshall Plan—instead, their views had been shaped by the

Vietnam War and Watergate.

Embedded in these fears were ongoing concerns about the United States’ image.

Underlying the generational shift was the sense that Washington was now seen as unreliable. The “successor generation” questioned US power, influenced by the Vietnam

War and Watergate. It was a far cry from the generation of the 1940s, who had seen the

United States’ commitment to Europe affirmed in the Second World War, the Marshal

Plan, and the creation of NATO. Public perceptions of NATO could not be separated from views of the United States. Images of the United States as militaristic, materialistic, or

60 USIA briefing paper, “Public Opinion Update on INF,” August 8, 1983, NARA, CREST, CIA- RDP85M00364R001903760013-5.

61 Burns remarks, “Reflections on the NATO Alliance,” October 20, 1982, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1152. 249

both dominated much of the conversation. One West German information official pointed to the “materialistic and egotistic” nature of 1980s youth as the root cause of their discontent.62 Privately, the Western allies continued to push for Reagan to demonstrate his commitment to peace. Pierre Trudeau, during an April 1983 stop in Washington, argued that the president must make it clear to Western publics that he truly was a “man of peace.”63

Doubts about the soundness of NATO’s strategy were by no means confined to anti-nuclear demonstrations and rallies. NATO, in the eyes of many in Western foreign policy circles, seemed an Alliance plagued by a series of overlapping challenges, each one damaging in its own right. The Western allies suffered an erosion of confidence in

NATO’s policies, suspicion amongst the allies as to their partners’ intentions and priorities, and a rise in neutralist and pacifist thinking about security questions.64

Throughout the Alliance, the deployment of the Euromissiles and NATO’s handling of

East-West relations were subjects of domestic political debate. Opposition parties, such as the Danish Social Democrats, Dutch Labor, and Norwegian Labor, argued that NATO had abandoned its earlier commitment to the parallel pursuit of détente and defense.65

In the Netherlands, the basing question remained open—and politically contentious. Some worried about a historic neutralism and pacifism, deeply rooted in

62 “Conference of National Information Officials,” March 3, 1982, NATO, C-M(82)17. 63 Fowler memorandum, “Report of a Meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and President Reagan,” n.d. [1983], LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28591, File 20-1-2-USA, Part 71. 64 Arrigo Levi, “Western values and the successor generation,” NATO Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (June 1982): 2.

65 Directorate of Intelligence memorandum, “Western Europe: Leftist Opposition Parties and INF,” June 1983, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP84S00555R000200120007-2. 250

Dutch society. Worse yet, what if this neutralist affliction—“Hollanditis,” as the

American commentator Walter Laqueur famously termed it in 1981—spread beyond

Dutch borders?66 In Denmark, the Social Democrats introduced a parliamentary resolution calling for the delay of NATO’s scheduled INF deployments and for US-Soviet negotiations to be extended and merged with the superpowers’ parallel START negotiations. So long as the arms control talks were still taking place, the Social

Democrats argued that the Dual-Track Decision’s deployments should be delayed.67 The

Folketing voted in favor of the proposal in May. Danish Prime Minister Poul Schlüter responded by publicly remarking that Moscow would be “pleased with this victory in a

Western parliament.”68 High-ranking Social Democrats followed up the vote with public assurances that the Folketing’s resolution was still compatible with the structures of the

Dual-Track Decision. Though categorically false, these public claims made for a useful press line to downplay the vote.

The left-wing Greek government also expressed its continuing displeasure with the Dual-Track Decision. NATO communiqués were littered with footnotes drawing attention to various Greek objections to the 1979 decision.69 Greek Prime Minister

Andreas Papandreou publicly called for the inclusion of British and French systems in the

66 Walter Laqueur, “Hollanditis: A New Stage in European Neutralism,” in America, Europe, and the Soviet Union: Selected Essays, Volume 2 (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1983), 33. 67 Weston to Gillmore, “Danish Parliament Debate on Foreign Affairs and INF,” May 26, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979. 68 Copenhagen to External Affairs, “INF-Danish Policy,” May 27, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28252, File 27-4-NATO-1-INF, Part 2.

69 Després to Cameron, “Your Visit to Athens,” June 3, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28252, File 27-4-NATO-1- INF, Part 2. 251

ongoing INF talks during a June interview on Hungarian television.70 Two months later, foreign minister Ioannis Haralambopoulos appealed to his colleagues in the European

Community to defer the missile deployments. Rejected outright by other Western

European governments, the Haralambopoulos proposal left many agitated. Papandreou’s government had used its position as EC president to promotes its “maverick views” when any concerns should have been raised through NATO channels, if at all. British officials viewed it as the worst example to date of Papandreou’s opposition to standing NATO policy. Officials in London speculated that the Greek prime minister was in cahoots with

Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu in the hopes of stopping the Euromissiles from being deployed.71 With an Alliance increasingly divided on the INF deployments, the

Dual-Track Decision’s future remained uncertain at best. Soviet propagandists relished these obvious failures in Washington’s “arm-twisting” strategy, and looked forward to a difficult autumn for the Alliance.72

Staying the Course

On September 1, 1983, the Soviet Union shot down a passenger aircraft which strayed into Soviet airspace as it travelled from New York to Seoul via Anchorage. Soviet Air

Defense Forces mistook the aircraft for an espionage overflight and responded, launching

70 Birch to FCO, “Athens Telno 258 to FCO. Greek Prime Minister’s View on INF,” June 10, 1983, TNA- UK, PREM 19/979. 71 Kinchen to Rickett, “The Greek Proposal to Postpone Deployment on INF Missiles,” August 23, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979.

72 “Stepping Up Militaristic Plans,” June 12, 1983, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 35, No. 24 (July 1983), 20. 252

air-to-air missiles which brought the plane down in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers on board the flight were killed, including a US Congressman. News that the Soviet Union had shot down Korean Airlines flight 007 was met with a sharp reaction across the globe.

Official Soviet statements insisted the flight was a “flagrant violation” of Soviet airspace, laying blame with the United States.73

The downing of the Korean Airliner seemed to many illustrative of the very worst aspects of the Soviet system. Reagan’s televised address to the nation, for instance, referred to it as “an act of barbarism” and pointed to the Soviet refusal to apologize as evidence of their limited regard for human life. But KAL 007 was no surprise, Reagan reminded his listeners: “memories come back of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the gassing of villages in Afghanistan.”74 Shooting down a passenger aircraft, Richard Nixon wrote in one op-ed, illustrated that the Soviets were “the moral outlaws of the world.”

But, the former president argued, the downing of KAL 007 should be seen as an opportunity by those in the West. It exposed the limitations of their current approach to

East-West relations. In its place, Nixon urged the Reagan administration and

Washington’s transatlantic partners to pursue what he called a “hard-headed détente.”75

In response to the downing of the Korean Airliner, sanctions were introduced against the Soviet Union, including restrictions against Aeroflot and efforts to condemn

73 “Soviet Government Statement,” September 7-8, 1983, The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 35, No. 35 (September 28, 1983), 9. 74 Reagan remarks, “Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner,” September 5, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 2 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1985), 1228.

75 Nixon’s push for genuine détente was, at least in part, a plug for his new book, Real Peace. Richard Nixon, “KAL flight 007: With tragedy, an opportunity,” October 2, 1983, Chicago Tribune. 253

Soviet actions at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).76 Some in the

Reagan White House even called for the suspension of negotiations with the Soviet

Union. Weinberger argued that Shultz should cancel his scheduled meeting with

Gromyko, planned for the margins of the Madrid review conference.77 But Reagan refused to let the Korean Airliner derail arms reduction talks with Moscow. “Now,” he told Thatcher in late September, “was not the time when we should isolate ourselves from the Soviet Union.” His reasoning was simple: the current nuclear threat was “too dangerous” for the superpowers not to talk.78

The KAL 007 tragedy did take some of the wind out of the sails of the peace movement. Soviet actions, particularly Moscow’s intransigent response to the crisis, worked against their efforts to style themselves as the peacemaker of the two superpowers. The Canadian Embassy in Bonn, for instance, concluded that the downing of KAL 007 had reduced both the strength and appeal of the peace movement in the

Federal Republic.79 “The month since the shootdown,” Shultz informed Reagan in late

September, “has shown the Soviets at their worst and the US at its best.”80

76 Shultz to Reagan, “Response to Soviet Downing of KAL Airliner,” n.d. [1983], RRPL, Jack F. Matlock Files, Box 28, “KAL 3/3” folder. 77 Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random House, 2004), 67; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 364-6. 78 Thatcher, Reagan et al. memorandum of conversation, 11:37, September 29, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1153. 79 Bonn to External Affairs, “INF-FRG Views,” September 28, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28252, File 27-4- NATO-1-INF, Part 4.

80 Shultz to Reagan, “KAL: Managing the Next Phase,” September 27, 1983, RRPL, Jack F. Matlock Files, Box 28, Folder “KAL 3/3.” 254

Major hurdles still remained before the deployments could begin. In June, the

Social Democrats had tabled a motion to delay the deployment of US missiles to the

Federal Republic until after the Bundestag had debated and approved it. Bonn’s position, the British worried, was now “distinctly shaky.”81 The Bundestag’s debates in September further increased concerns. Genscher stressed the need for the deployments to go ahead, as well as the need to keep negotiating. Any deployments were not irreversible, after all, should the talks between Washington and Moscow bear fruit. But the SPD made it clear that they would call for the missile deployments to be postponed if the US-Soviet negotiations in Geneva yielded nothing.82 Polls showed that 61 percent of the population supported the peace movement, and estimates placed the attendance at the October 22 anti-nuclear demonstrations across the Federal Republic anywhere between 620,000 and

1.2 million.83

In the final months leading up to the planned deployments, the Western allies seized opportunities to visibly demonstrate their appreciation of the nuclear threat and their commitment to reaching an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union. The

Special Consultative Group, which typically held its regular consultations in Brussels, began rotating meeting sites. Beginning with a September meeting in London, the Group held successive gatherings in the capitals of the basing countries. Doing so, they hoped,

81 Fall to Coles, “German Position on INF,” June 24, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979. 82 Taylor to FCO, “FRG Views on INF: Bundestag Security–Policy Debate 16 September,” September 19, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979.

83 “Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF),” November 2, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28250, File 27-4- NATO-1-INF, Part 5. 255

would draw attention to the Alliance’s ongoing consultations on the INF issue.84 At the

Nuclear Planning Group’s October meeting in Montebello, Quebec, the assembled ministers announced plans to withdraw some 1,400 warheads from Europe. The meeting’s final communiqué framed the move as part of the West’s commitment to

“preserve the peace through the maintenance of forces at the lowest level capable of deterring the Warsaw Pact threat.”85

A string of events in late October contributed to a sense of looming crisis. On

October 23, 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers died in successive bombing attacks in Beirut, Lebanon. Two days later, the United States invaded Grenada. Operation

Urgent Fury, described as a “rescue mission” to extract US medical students on the island, was a response to the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. With the installation of the Revolutionary Military Council as the government in St. George’s, the

Reagan administration worried about a new communist state and the growth of Cuban influence in the region, concerns reinforced by CIA estimates that there were two Cuban battalions stationed on the island.86 The US decision to invade the tiny Caribbean nation was an overwhelming show of force. To critics and supporters alike, it seemed confirmation that Reagan the president was the same as Reagan the candidate: a man who

84 Bone to Coles, “INF,” September 13, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/979. 85 Annex to the final communiqué, NPG, Montebello, October 27, 1983, NATO, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/ natohq/official_texts_23221.htm?.

86 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 336. 256

saw the world in black and white and would not hesitate to use force when he deemed it necessary.

Washington’s Caribbean adventure infuriated many in the Alliance, not least

Thatcher. For all the talk of the ‘special relationship’ between Washington and London, the Americans had failed to consult the prime minister before invading a member of the

Commonwealth. Thatcher’s objections also reflected serious concerns about the impact of the invasion on the upcoming INF deployments. Reagan’s war in Grenada undercut one of her traditional arguments about the fundamental difference between NATO (a defensive alliance) and the Soviet Union (an “aggressive power”).87 Britons responded to

Operation Urgent Fury with calls for the cruise missile deliveries to be delayed and for the Thatcher government to secure dual-key control of the weapons. Consultations—or the lack thereof—mattered. If Washington could not be bothered to consult the British government before launching an invasion of a Commonwealth country, “why should they do so over the firing of missiles?”88 The British were far from alone in seeing the invasion of Grenada as a damaging move. From Bonn, Canadian Ambassador Donald

McPhail called the issue a “test-tube illustration” of German concerns about the reliability of the US commitment to consultations and the wisdom of its decision- making.89 Supreme Allied Commander–Europe General Bernard Rogers put it bluntly,

87 Memorandum for Ingham, October 31, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1049. 88 Thatcher, Dam et al. memorandum of conversation, 8:00, November 7, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1151.

89 McPhail to External Affairs, “PMs Initiative on East/West Relations–FRG Setting,” November 3, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25337, File 28-6-1-TRUDEAU PEACE MISSION, Part 5. 257

telling Trudeau that Operation Urgent Fury had been a “very poor decision with incalculable effects on the Europeans.”90

The Soviet Union ratcheted up the pressure in the final weeks before the scheduled deployments. Soviet statements outlined a clear choice: either the West deployed the Euromissiles or the two superpowers could continue their negotiations. The two options could not coexist as far as Moscow was concerned.91 In the final weeks,

Soviet negotiators floated an informal offer to reduce both US and Soviet arsenals by 572 missiles. Such a bargain would prevent the US deployments from beginning: all 572 missiles called for in the Dual-Track Decision would be written out of existence should the United States accept the Soviet offer. Moscow, on the other hand, would retain some

360 missiles. Ultimately, the US negotiating team concluded that the proposal was not even a serious one as it was never officially tabled in the Geneva talks.92 The Kremlin’s approach seemed to be more focused on improving the Soviet position in the court of public opinion than achieving any last-minute breakthroughs in the negotiations.93

Mere weeks before the INF deployments were set to begin, the Dutch proposed another scheme to stall. The initiative called for a new link between the Western missiles and the Soviet SS-20s: NATO could defer its deployments incrementally at a rate which

90 “Recent Meetings – Prime Minister/Experts,” November 3, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25337, File 28-6-1- TRUDEAU PEACE MISSION, Part 5. 91 Ratford to FCO, “INF: Andropov Interview with Pravda,” October 26, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1182. 92 Shenstone and Marchand to Trudeau and MacGuigan, “Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Negotiations,” November 16, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28250, File 27-4-NATO-1-INF, Part 5.

93 BNATO to External Affairs, “INF: USA and Soviet Moves,” November 15, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 28250, File 27-4-NATO-1-INF, Part 5. 258

would be pegged to the removal of Soviet systems already in the field.94 The Dutch government followed up the proposal with yet another deferral on its final decision whether or not to house US cruise missiles on Dutch soil. Even British defense minister

Michael Heseltine’s November 14 announcement to the House of Commons that 16 of the Tomahawk cruise missiles had been delivered to Greenham Common did not convince the Soviets to walk out of the talks in Geneva.95 The keystone remained Bonn— and the outcome of the Bundestag’s debates. Kohl’s government invested millions of dollars in an education campaign, countering the materials disseminated by anti-nuclear activists, under the banner “peace requires security.” On November 22, in its thirty- seventh debate on the issue since 1979, the Bundestag voted to accept the deployment of the Pershing IIs and cruise missiles.96 The next day, deliveries of US missiles started.

After the Bundestag’s final vote, United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar appealed to both Moscow and Washington to remain at the negotiating table in

Geneva.97 As US missiles began arriving in Europe, however, the Kremlin made good on its earlier threats: Soviet negotiators walked out of the INF talks. For the NATO allies, it marked the end of four tumultuous years over INF. Moscow’s decision to leave the talks, as one piece in the Boston Globe put it, was seen “with some pride by tormented NATO

94 Smith to PM Task Force (IDDZ), “PM Initiative–Call on PM Lubbers,” November 7, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25337, File 28-6-1-TRUDEAU PEACE MISSION, Part 6. 95 Strobe Talbott, Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), 199-200. 96 Herf, War by Other Means, 205.

97 Alice Siegert, “Bonn OKs deployment of missiles,” November 23, 1983, Chicago Tribune. 259

governments.”98 Soviet efforts to prevent the Dual-Track Decision’s deployments had failed. NATO had survived the test.

Any damage done to East-West relations as a result of the deployments would be short-lived, or so the allies hoped. US intelligence assessments predicted that Europeans on both sides of the Iron Curtain would not be willing to accept any long-term damage to their existing political and economic ties. Even the Soviet Union would desire a return to more normal relations.99 Soviet intransigence following the deployments was chalked up to the need to follow through with Moscow’s earlier threats. It would be a “pro forma boycott,” nothing more.100 In the interim, the NATO allies could make the most of other venues to advance their arms control and disarmament objectives. Talks on MBFR, now in their twelfth year, continued and the Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building

Measures and Disarmament in Europe was scheduled to open in Stockholm in January.101

Back to the Future

Public debates over the Euromissiles raised larger questions about the purpose of NATO.

The allies now needed to consider why the peace movement had so much appeal throughout the West.102 David Abshire, the US permanent representative to NATO,

98 Steven Erlanger, “The Soviets’ Circumspect Walkout,” November 24, 1983, Boston Globe. 99 Deputy Director, Office of European Analysis to NIO Western Europe, “INF Deployment and East-West Relations,” October 13, 1983, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP85T00287R000502090001-7. 100 Peter Jenkins, “The deepest crisis in NATO’s history,” November 23, 1983, The Guardian. 101 Deputy Director, Office of European Analysis to NIO Western Europe, “INF Deployment and East-West Relations,” October 13, 1983, NARA, CREST, CIA-RDP85T00287R000502090001-7.

102 Grethe Vaernø, “A Public Opinion Strategy,” NATO Review, Vol. 31, No. 3/4 (October 1983): 26. 260

described an institution now “at the moral crossroads.” Years of transatlantic debates on

INF had unnerved allied publics leading them to question the assumptions at the heart of the transatlantic bargain. The Alliance, he concluded, needed to adapt to these new realities.103 NATO, it seemed, no longer possessed a clear strategy for managing East-

West relations. Those same issues which had driven intra-Alliance debates—and, in particular, those between Washington and Bonn—throughout 1982 still remained unresolved, masked by the immediate need to see the INF deployments through. In capitals throughout the Alliance, officials had lamented the lack of a meaningful strategy.104 “The West,” as Thatcher told Bush during his June stop in London, “had been staggering from decision to decision without an overall concept.”105

Pierre Trudeau’s ‘Peace Mission’ emerged out of such concerns. His whirlwind diplomatic initiative looked to rebuild confidence between East and West in the hopes of creating a favorable climate for the superpowers to improve their bilateral relationship.

As far as Trudeau was concerned, the West was trying to manage East-West relations in a vacuum. NATO’s members had little appreciation for the Soviet Union’s foreign policy priorities or Moscow’s own worries.106 Addressing a disarmament conference at the

University of Guelph in late October, Trudeau laid out his concerns about the lack of dialogue between the superpowers and the rising tendency to solve problems through

103 Abshire remarks, “NATO at the Moral Crossroads: Broadening the Consensus,” October 9, 1983, RRPL, Ronald Lehman Files, RAC Box 11, “NATO (2)” folder. 104 See, for example, Helmut Schmidt, A Grand Strategy for the West: The Anachronism of National Strategies in an Interdependent World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), 17-9. 105 Thatcher, Bush et al. memorandum of conversation, June 24, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1033.

106 Trudeau to Thatcher, October 26, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1033. 261

force in international affairs. He pointed to recent events—what he termed an “ominous rhythm of crisis”—as evidence of the need for creative new initiatives to break through the stale rhetoric on both sides of the Iron Curtain.107

Between October 1983 and February 1984, Trudeau travelled the globe as part of this peace initiative. He made stops in China, Czechoslovakia, the DDR, the Federal

Republic, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and, after considerable difficulty, in the Soviet Union. He called for a conference of the

five nuclear powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the

United States—and revisited his earlier calls for a comprehensive test ban.

Many within NATO looked askance at the Peace Mission. The Canadian prime minister’s arms control and disarmament proposals were seen by the Reagan White

House as measures that would “fall of their own weight.”108 Trudeau’s rhetoric cast the initiative as an extension of the Alliance’s existing two-track approach; in a poorly thought-out soundbite, he called for an additional “‘third rail’ of high-level political energy.”109 But his timing seemed to suggest otherwise. By kicking off the Peace Mission just weeks before the INF deployments were set to begin, Trudeau’s diplomatic efforts were seen as naive at best.

Even Reagan and Thatcher, NATO’s supposed hardliners, believed that dialogue with the Soviet Union was desirable, even necessary. Since entering office, both had

107 Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “A Peace Initiative from Canada,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 40, No. 1 (January 1984): 15. 108 Hill to McFarlane, “Trudeau’s “Peace Initiative”,” November 16, 1983, RRPL, Ronald Lehman Files, RAC Box 2, “British/French Nuclear Forces, 1983-1984 (2)” folder.

109 Trudeau, “A Peace Initiative from Canada,” 18. 262

spoken consistently of the need for dialogue provided it was conducted from a position of strength. Previously, the two had made their political reputations sounding the alarm on

Western weakness. Now, they expressed far greater optimism about the West’s position relative to the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union remained bogged down in a costly war in

Afghanistan, struggled to fill the shelves of its grocery stores, and lagged behind the West in technological development. Circumstances now favored the West in economic and military terms, a fact made all the more obvious by the start of the INF deployments.

Before the deployments began, as her remarks during Bush’s June visit indicate,

Thatcher had already concluded that the West’s current approach to East-West relations was not working. In September, she assembled a team of Soviet specialists at Chequers to discuss the government’s current policy. After the Chequers seminar, Thatcher’s government resolved to build up contacts with the Soviet Union. A shift in British policy, however, would not be announced publicly.110 Before an audience at the Conservative

Party Convention in October, Thatcher advocated for greater dialogue with the East alongside “her traditional insistence on Western strength, firmness and unity.”111 She headed to Hungary for a state visit in February, and later that month she attended

Andropov’s funeral. While in Moscow, the prime minister gave a press conference pushing back on the tendency to portray her two trips as a “sudden unexpected development.”112 (After seeing Andropov’s successor, the equally geriatric Konstantin

110 Coles to Fall, “Policy on East/West Relations,” September 12, 1983, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1155. 111 London to External Affairs, “East/West Relations: Change in British Emphasis,” October 21, 1983, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 25336, File 28-6-1-TRUDEAU PEACE MISSION, Part 2.

112 British Information Services news release, “Prime Minister Thatcher’s Press Conference,” February 14, 1984, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 26958, File 28-6-1-TRUDEAU PEACE MISSION, Part 31. 263

Chernenko, on Soviet television, Thatcher joked privately that they might as well stay in

Moscow to wait for the next funeral.113) They were, in fact, part of a concerted effort on her part to improve relations with the East.

Reagan expressed similar concerns about the state of relations with the Soviet

Union. Some have chalked it up to the events of autumn 1983, citing the downing of the

Korean Airliner, a supposed “war scare” over a piece of NATO’s November exercise,

Able Archer ‘83, and The Day After as moments which transformed the president’s thinking.114 But Reagan’s commitment to negotiating long predated any of these developments. Already, in February 1983, Clark concluded that the US position had improved substantially. As such, the National Security Adviser argued, “there is a very solid basis for concluding that the Soviets may be reconciled to the fact that by the end of the decade we will have passed them again.” Given this shift in the balance of power,

Clark recommended that the administration now negotiate in earnest with the Soviet

Union. Tellingly, Clark’s opening assertion that the Reagan White House “hadn’t tried” to bring about a change in relations with Moscow provoked a rare margin note from

Reagan. “We have tried,” the president scribbled.115

Not all in the administration favored negotiation, to be sure. John Lenczowski,

Director of European and Soviet Affairs on the NSC, responded fiercely to Clark’s

113 Sir Brian Fall oral history interview, January 23, 2017, British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/Fall.pdf, 51. 114 William M. Knoblauch, Nuclear Freeze in a Cold War: The Reagan Administration, Cultural Activism, and the End of the Arms Race (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), 78.

115 Clark to Reagan, “The Prospects for Progress in US-Soviet Relations,” February 4, 1983, RRPL, Clark Files, Box 8, “US-Soviet Relations Papers (2)” folder. 264

memorandum, insisting that all the National Security Adviser’s approach would do was

“improve relations with the USSR on Soviet terms.”116 Reagan had assumed he would face this type of opposition, but pressed on regardless. Confident that the West’s position had improved from the nadir of the 1970s, Reagan assembled a select group of administration officials to revisit and rethink Soviet policy, including Shultz, Bush, and

Clark.

Internal efforts to reevaluate the administration’s approach to US-Soviet relations were rooted, in part, in the need to improve transatlantic relations. Over the spring of

1983, Shultz pushed for a larger role in shaping administration policy. Earlier public statements, such as the “evil empire” reference in the address at the National Association of Evangelicals, had been crafted by parts of the administration far removed from the day-to-day management of foreign policy. But for Shultz, these assertions created major problems in relations with US allies; the Secretary of State insisted that he needed to wield greater influence.117

Even before entering the White House, Reagan had expressed a clear vision of how he hoped to conduct relations with the Soviet Union. His writings and speeches over the years pointed to the need for the United States and its Western partners to negotiate, albeit from a position of strength. In late 1982, for instance, Thatcher concluded that the president’s position was that “he was ready to respond if the Soviet Union provided

116 Lenczowski to Clark, “The Memorandum to the President on U.S.-Soviet Relations,” February 7, 1983, RRPL, William P. Clark Files, Box 8, “US-Soviet Relations Papers (2)” folder.

117 Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, 61. 265

genuine opportunities.”118 Now was the time, Reagan concluded, to put this strategy into action. Over the autumn of 1983, he often spoke of his desire to negotiate drastic reductions in the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals. Addressing the United Nations in

September, he underscored his administration’s commitment to reaching agreements with the Soviet Union on INF and START. Two months later, before the Japanese Diet,

Reagan again made plain his commitment to reaching an agreement with Moscow, no matter the Kremlin’s willingness to negotiate:

We wanted to cut deep into nuclear arsenals, and still do. But they’re blocking the dramatic reductions the world wants. In our good-faith effort to move the negotiations forward, we have offered new initiatives, provided for substantial reductions to equal levels, and the lower the level the better. But we shall wait. We still wait for the first positive response.

Despite this bleak picture, I will not be deterred in my search for a breakthrough. The United States will never walk away from the negotiating table. Peace is too important. Common sense demands that we persevere, and we will persevere.119

Remarks like these reflected the president’s genuine desire to improve relations and reduce the risks inherent in the nuclear age, though they were often dismissed as mere political theater designed to ensure that the INF deployments went ahead as scheduled.

Behind the scenes, George Shultz devised a four-point agenda for his meetings with the longtime Soviet Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin. Human rights, arms control, regional issues, and bilateral questions formed the core of the

118 Coles to Fall, “East/West Relations,” November 17, 1982, TNA-UK, FCO 28/4709.

119 Reagan remarks, Japanese Diet, Tokyo, November 11, 1983, PPP: RR 1983, vol. 2, 1576. 266

administration’s reinvigorated quest for constructive dialogue with the Soviet Union.120

Shultz played a central role, appreciating the president’s desire to use renewed strength as a bargaining chip to improve relations and secure meaningful reductions in both superpowers’ nuclear arsenals.121

The same publicity problems, however, still plagued the administration. Walter

Mondale, Reagan’s presumptive challenger in the 1984 presidential election, characterized the Reagan foreign policy as one designed “to prove our toughness to the world.”122 Reagan’s advisers, like the NSC’s new Soviet specialist Jack Matlock, warned that public opinion did not appreciate the president’s desire for a more constructive relationship with Moscow. At home and abroad, Reagan continued to be seen as “too quick on the trigger.”123 Reagan’s image problems stemmed from inconsistencies in the president’s own thinking about the Soviet Union. His public statements were often at odds with his private correspondence to Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov. More often than not, the president was indecisive about the best course of action. He wondered whether the Soviet Union could be trusted to conclude arms control agreements, but

120 Reagan, Bush et al. memorandum of conversation, “US-Soviet Relations,” June 15, 1983, RRPL, William P. Clark Files, Box 9, “US-Soviet Relations Papers (14)” folder. 121 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 281. On Shultz’s role in Reagan’s Soviet policy, see James Graham Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), esp. 63-86. 122 Mondale remarks, Coalition for a Democratic Majority, Washington, DC, November 15, 1983, Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), Walter F. Mondale Papers, 153.J.1.10F, “Nuclear Weapons Fact Sheet” folder.

123 Deaver and McFarlane to Reagan, “Your Speech on U.S.-Soviet Relations,” January 5, 1983 (sic) [January 5, 1984], RRPL, Jack F. Matlock Files, Box 31, “Presidential Address US-Soviet Relations Background Materials 1/5” folder. 267

wished for arms reductions.124 Privately, the administration had already achieved considerable successes through negotiations with the Soviet Union. They secured exit visas for the Siberian Seven, a group of Pentecostals who had taken refuge in the basement of the US Embassy in Moscow. But Reagan’s “quiet diplomacy” and its results stayed quiet.125

Administration efforts to change public perception of the president’s leadership and his Soviet policy culminated in an address on US-Soviet relations, delivered on the morning of January 16, 1984. Even the name of the speech pointed to its global significance: “An Address to the Nation and Other Countries on US-Soviet Relations.”

Reagan’s address, delivered on the eve of the Stockholm disarmament talks and timed for maximum coverage in the European evening newscasts, included no concrete proposals to improve relations. Instead, his remarks centered around his personal desire “to pursue a constructive and realistic dialogue with the Soviet Union.”126

Reagan’s January 16 remarks hinged on a familiar approach to East-West relations. He spoke of the need to pursue two approaches simultaneously:

Deterrence is essential to preserve peace and protect our way of life, but deterrence is not the beginning and end of our policy toward the Soviet Union. We must and will engage the Soviets in a dialog as serious and

124 James Graham Wilson, “How Grand was Reagan’s Strategy, 1976–1984?,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 18 (2007): 773-803. 125 When the Soviets allowed another Pentecostal family to leave the Soviet Union in July 1983, Reagan wrote in his diary, “Quiet diplomacy is working.” Reagan diary entry, July 20, 1983, Reagan Diaries, vol. 1, 249. On “quiet diplomacy” more broadly, see Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, 54-9; Simon Miles, “Engaging the ‘Evil Empire’: East-West Relations in the Second Cold War,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2017), esp. 106-27.

126 Reagan to Thatcher, January 14, 1984, RRPL, NSA Head of State File, Box 34, “Thatcher: Cables [4]” folder. 268

constructive as possible—a dialog that will serve to promote peace in the troubled regions of the world, reduce the levels of arms, and build a constructive working relationship.127

Deterrence and dialogue, the president explained, governed his approach to the Soviet

Union. It was, in essence, an affirmation that NATO’s long-standing Harmel approach remained a sound Cold War strategy.

Dubbed the Ivan and Anya speech for Reagan’s folksy remarks about two couples, one Soviet and one American, meeting, the president’s January 16, 1984 address came to be seen as a break in the administration’s Soviet policy, separating the bombastic rhetoric of the first term from the real breakthroughs of the second term.128 Two elements, however, bear noting. The tangible and obvious improvements in superpower relations so commonly associated with the later Reagan years did not begin as a result of Reagan’s address. Gromyko, for instance, dismissed the speech as nothing more than a cynical ploy. The Reagan administration, he remarked to Canadian foreign minister Allan

MacEachen later that month, was still filled with “mastodons” who seemed to “rub their hands with glee” if they had a chance to make US-Soviet relations worse.129 Moreover, the Ivan and Anya speech was far from the first time Reagan had expressed his views on

127 Reagan remarks, “Address to the Nation and Other Countries on United States–Soviet Relations,” January 16, 1984, PPP: RR 1984, vol. 1 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1986), 41. 128 Beth Fischer’s path-breaking book The Reagan Reversal encapsulated the view that Reagan’s January 16 speech signaled an abrupt shift in Reagan’s Soviet policy: Beth A. Fischer, The Reagan Reversal: Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000). For similar assessments of a sudden shift in Reagan’s Soviet policy, see also Hanhimäki, Schoenborn, and Zanchetta, Transatlantic Relations Since 1945, 103; Pipes, Vixi, 157.

129 Stockholm to External Affairs, “Stkhm Conf(CCSBMDE): SSEA Bilat with Gromko (sic),” January 19, 1984, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 8800, File 20-1-2-USSR, Part 47. 269

superpower relations in cooperative terms. But the perception that Reagan’s January 16 address signified a fundamental shift, popular among contemporaries and scholars alike, is telling in its own right. It speaks to just how deeply rooted views of the administration as bombastic, anti-Soviet, and anti-détente really were in the early 1980s and remain today.

Washington’s partners in NATO greeted the Ivan and Anya speech with enthusiasm. Trudeau pointed to Reagan’s address as evidence that his Peace Mission had begun to transform the climate of East-West relations.130 Kohl optimistically noted that

Reagan now wished to pursue “the kind of relationship which Nixon and Brezhnev had agreed to in 1972.”131 The president’s increasingly public desire to focus on East-West dialogue, British observers remarked, dovetailed neatly with Bonn’s longstanding commitment to developing contacts across the Iron Curtain. But Kohl still felt that

Washington could be doing more to improve relations with the Soviet Union, including pursuing a summit with the new General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko.132

NATO also revisited its approach to East-West relations in the winter of 1983–

1984. Having weathered the initial INF deployments, the Western allies took seriously the ongoing need to make the case for Western strategy to their publics.133 Within two

130 Trudeau remarks, “Initiatives for Peace and Security,” February 9, 1984, Department of External Affairs Statements and Speeches No. 84/2. 131 Moscow to External Affairs, “PM Mtg with Chancellor Kohl Mosco 14Feb,” February 15, 1984, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 26958, File 28-6-1-TRUDEAU PEACE MISSION, Part 31. 132 Acland to Armstrong, “Anglo German Summit: 2 May 1984,” April 6, 1984, TNA-UK, PREM 19/1245.

133 “Runderlaß des Vortragenden Legationsrats I. Klasse Steinkühler,” June 4, 1984, AAPD 1984 I, doc. 160. 270

weeks of the Soviet walkout, the Belgian Senate unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for the immediate resumption of US-Soviet talks on INF and a diplomatic initiative to push for a return to the principles of the Harmel Report, to be coordinated with other small European states. The next day, Belgian foreign minister Leo Tindemans proposed a study of East-West relations at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council.

Tindemans suggested a full assessment of the relationship, much like the 1967 review.134

At the North Atlantic Council’s ministerial meeting in December, the assembled foreign ministers issued the Declaration of Brussels. It was a signal to both Western publics and the Warsaw Pact that the allies wished to improve East-West relations. The

Declaration called on the members of the Pact to respond favorably to Western overtures, making the most of “the opportunities we offer for a balanced and constructive relationship and for genuine détente.”135

The Washington Statement on East-West Relations, released at NATO’s meeting in May, reaffirmed the conclusions reached in 1967. The Western allies once again held up the “validity of the balanced approach,” pointing to the need to preserve allied strength, both politically and militarily, as well as to develop a more stable and constructive relationship with the East. Harmel’s two prongs, however, were given a facelift for the 1980s. “Dialogue,” the Washington Statement affirmed, “can only be fruitful if each party is confident of its security and is prepared to respect the legitimate

134 Gérard, “La dynamique du mouvement de paix,” 19-20.

135 NATO foreign ministers statement, “Declaration of Brussels,” December 9, 1983, NATO Final Communiques 1981-1985, 108. 271

interests of others: military strength alone cannot guarantee a peaceful future.” Dialogue became the preferred term of choice to describe the day-to-day handling of East-West relations. The only mention of détente in the declaration came in the now-standard assertion that the allies hoped to build on areas of mutual interest, such as crisis management and confidence-building, “to promote more constructive dialogue and cooperation with the members of the Warsaw Pact with a view to achieving genuine détente.”136

Across the Alliance, the Washington Statement was viewed as a positive step.

Shultz saw the final study as an affirmation of the Reagan approach; it would bolster the president’s message of “strength and realism” as laid out in his January 16 address.137 In

Bonn, the East-West study was taken as the result they had long hoped to achieve: a clear affirmation of Harmel’s continued significance. Coming on the heels of the Declaration of Brussels and Reagan’s Ivan and Anya speech, the Washington Statement conveyed clearly that the entire Alliance—the Reagan administration included—shared the same outlook on East-West relations.138

136 NATO foreign ministers statement, “Washington Statement on East-West Relations,” May 31, 1984, NATO Communiques 1981-1985, 134. 137 Shultz to Reagan, “Your Participation in the North Atlantic Council, May 30-31,” May 23, 1984, RRPL, Philip Dur Files, Box 9, “NATO Strategy” folder.

138 “Runderlaß des Vortragenden Legationsrats I. Klasse Steinkühler,” June 4, 1984, AAPD 1984 I, doc. 161. 272

Conclusion

1983 was the low point of superpower relations. Given the widespread atmosphere of crisis that year, it is hardly surprising that so many have seen it as the most dangerous moment in the Cold War since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.139 Subsequent histories have pointed to NATO’s command post exercise Able Archer 83, held in November, as the apex of these dangers. Part of a broader series of war games rehearsing the outbreak of war in Europe, Able Archer culminated in the use of US nuclear weapons against an invading Warsaw Pact force. In retrospect, the exercise has been portrayed in a much more pernicious light; based on limited evidence, most informed by the views of one

Soviet defector, historians have argued that an increasingly paranoid Kremlin saw the

NATO exercise as cover for a surprise nuclear attack and nearly launched a preemptive strike of their own.140 We now know, based on the records available in Warsaw Pact

139 Doug Rossinow, The Reagan Era: A History of the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 101.

140 Portrayals of the Able Archer 83 exercise as a “war scare” stemmed largely from the later recollections of Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky. Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990), 492-507; Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, eds., Comrade Kryuchkov’s Instructions: Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations, 1975–1985 (Stanford.: Stanford University Press, 1993), 67-90. On Able Archer 83 as a “war scare” more broadly, see Fischer, The Reagan Reversal, 122-40; Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington.: Brookings Institution Press, 1994), 138-40; Nate Jones, ed., Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War (New York: The New Press, 2016), 1-59; Melvyn P. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007), 356-8. 273

archives, that this was not the case.141 But the prospect that the world had come close to nuclear war on one fateful day in the autumn of 1983 remains a compelling narrative given the palpable tensions of the time, a fact which accounts for its enduring popularity amongst scholars and in popular culture.142 A “war scare” brought about by NATO’s Able

Archer exercise provides a neat encapsulation of the strained relations between the superpowers and the very real anxieties that nuclear war could break out at any time.

These fears, misplaced or otherwise, had a real impact on Western policy-making during the early 1980s. Peace activists not only questioned the logic behind NATO’s nuclear policies, they contributed to an ongoing conversation about how the West should approach its relations with the East. Their vocal opposition encouraged allied governments to rethink NATO’s strategy and purpose going forward. Strikingly, the product of that reassessment was not a radical new departure, but a reaffirmation of the approach first outlined in the Harmel Report in 1967. NATO’s members could—and, crucially, should—pursue better relations with the East, but needed to do so while

141 Dmitry Adamsky, “‘Not Crying Wolf’: Soviet Intelligence and the 1983 War Scare,” in Euromissile Crisis, 49-65; Mark Kramer, “Die Nicht-Krise um ‘Able Archer 1983’: Fürchtete die sowjetische Führung tatsächlich einen atomaren Großangriff im Herbst 1983?,” in Wege zur Wiedervereinigung: Die beiden deutschen Staaten in ihren Bündnissen 1970 bis 1990, ed. Oliver Bange and Bernd Lemke (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013), 129-49; Vojtech Mastny, “How Able Was ‘Able Archer’? Nuclear Trigger and Intelligence in Perspective,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2009): 108-23; Simon Miles, “The War Scare That Wasn’t: Able Archer 83 and the Myths of the Second Cold War,” unpublished working paper.

142 The season finale of the television show Deutschland ’83’s first season, for instance, was named “Able Archer.” See, for examples of the “war scare” in recent media, Douglas Birch, “The U.S.S.R. and U.S. Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Thought,” May 28, 2013, The Atlantic; Jamie Doward, “How a Nato war game took the world to the brink of nuclear disaster,” November 2, 2013, The Guardian; Nate Jones and J. Peter Scobolic, “The Week the World Almost Ended,” Slate, April 13, 2017; David E. Hoffman, “In 1983 ‘war scare,’ Soviet leadership feared nuclear surprise attack by U.S.,” October 24, 2015, The Washington Post. 274

preserving the strength of their defenses. With the Washington Statement on East-West

Relations, NATO’s members recommitted themselves to the tasks set forth in 1967. 275

Conclusion: The Irony of the Harmel Report

“One of the great ironies […] is that our beloved European Allies -- less true now than since the end of the Cold War, but still not untrue -- always no matter how much they have a problem with a sitting US President, as soon as the new President comes in they suddenly decide that the previous president was wonderful, and the new guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. There was always a crisis of confidence.”1 — Robert Hunter, 2004

“There is no contradiction between defense and dialogue. A strong NATO is essential if we are to engage Russia with confidence. A constructive NATO-Russia relationship would benefit the Euro-Atlantic community and the entire international order. But international rules must be respected – not rewritten. And certainly not violated. We will not compromise on these principles. We will stay united and steadfast. And we will continue to work for the day when Russia recognizes that there is no future in confrontation. But only in respect, trust and cooperation.”2 — Jens Stoltenberg, 2015

Rumors of NATO’s impending demise have been a constant in transatlantic relations since the organization was born in 1949. “The NATO crisis appears as regularly as the

Loch Ness monster does,” Helmut Schmidt once quipped—“every summer in British papers.”3 Like sightings of Nessie, these crises were greatly exaggerated. Anxieties about

US leadership and Washington’s commitment to the defense of Europe were chronic, no matter the context or the president. It was part and parcel of the transatlantic bargain: all

1 Robert E. Hunter oral history interview, August 10, 2004, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Hunter, %20Robert%20E.toc.pdf, 67-8. 2 Stoltenberg remarks, Munich Security Conference, February 9, 2015, NATO, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/ natohq/opinions_117320.htm.

3 Scowcroft to Ford, “Chancellor Schmidt Interview on NATO and Detente,” April 30, 1976, GFPL, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, Box 6, “Germany (10)” folder. 275 276

of the allies relied on the US nuclear umbrella and, as a result, often wondered how it might hold up if and when a storm finally did come. Fears of German revanchism forced the allies into elaborate burden-sharing schemes, designed to downplay Bonn’s central role, both geographically and politically.

And yet, as this dissertation illustrates, these events were also shaped in critical ways by individuals, miscalculations, and unintended consequences. The Harmel Report itself was a perfect example. Designed as a public relations exercise, it was never intended to lay out a far-ranging strategic vision for NATO. Without the acute crises of credibility and legitimacy in 1966, it likely never would have taken place at all.

Gradually, however, the Harmel Report’s double philosophy was used to limit public euphoria about agreements with the East, as the allies tried to do with the Helsinki Final

Act, and to cobble together support for investments in Western defense, as they did with the Long-Term Defense Program and the Dual-Track Decision. It was a balancing act: stray too far in either direction, be it toward defense or toward détente, and the policy might be derailed entirely. More than once, the balance seemed so off-kilter that it threatened to bring the whole house of cards down.

The Harmel Report’s consequences were wide-ranging, far more than any of its architects might have imagined—or frankly wished for, Pierre Harmel included. Its paired architecture could be found in the “parallel and complementary” Dual-Track

Decision of December 1979.4 It shaped the transatlantic debates about NATO’s future

4 Special Meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers, December 12, 1979, NATO Final Communiques, 1975-1980, 123. 277

after the Cold War. “Dialogue” between East and West could be replaced with new, post–

Cold War rhetoric about cooperation with the emerging Eastern European democracies.5

It could even be found in NATO’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

Accidents and Ambiguities

NATO’s pursuit of détente was rife with paradoxes. The Harmel Report defined a role for the Alliance in détente, but never made explicit what that détente might look like. The

Western allies gave this role meaning by developing a more multilateral détente process during the early 1970s, but fought the whole time about how that détente might be pursued and what they actually hoped to achieve in doing so. Even as East-West relations faltered in the second half of the decade, the allies continued to rely on the promise of détente to justify their policies, betting that they could blame the Soviets for any lack of progress later on down the road. The Soviet leadership bet the contrary and tried to turn

Western citizens against their own governments and NATO’s “warmongering” nuclear policies. For a while in the early 1980s, it looked like a gamble that the Western allies might lose. Hundreds of thousands of Western citizens protested NATO’s plans to deploy new missiles, blaming the allies—and, in particular, the United States—for the mortal dangers of what they deemed to be the “Second Cold War.”

As the fifteen allies conceived of the Harmel exercise, it would offer NATO legitimacy by giving it a role separate from a military response to the Soviet threat, while

5 “Reassessment of NATO Strategy: A Two Part Approach,” n.d. [March 1990], George Bush Presidential Library (GBPL), Heather Wilson Files, Box CF00293, “NATO Future [1] [6 of 6]” folder. 278

ensuring that the United States remained engaged on the European continent. It would create a framework for—and a constraint on—Federal Republic’s overtures to the East.

By making détente a central purpose of the Alliance, the Harmel Report ensured that the

Germans would play an even greater role in shaping NATO’s strategy going forward.

Geographic, demographic, and economic realities all gave Bonn leverage, while domestic political circumstances encouraged successive German governments to champion engagement with the East.

Similarly, the Dual-Track Decision was both product and creator of anxieties about the transatlantic partnership. NATO’s December 1979 plans to modernize and negotiate were a response to a constellation of issues: a decade-long debate over NATO’s theater nuclear force posture, European (and particularly West German) concerns about the US nuclear umbrella and a potential decoupling, the ongoing deployment of Soviet

SS-20s and Backfire bombers, and a psychological need to affirm that the Alliance could still meet the Soviet challenge, made all the more acute by the neutron bomb fiasco. But the context in which it would be implemented transformed almost overnight. The entire agreement was designed under the assumption that negotiations between the United

States and the Soviet Union could take place as part of SALT III. Within weeks of the

December 12 decision, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan (the invasion itself a product, in part, of the Dual-Track Decision) and SALT II’s prospects for ratification tanked. 279

First and foremost, the Dual-Track Decision was intended to provide reassurance: the United States still cared about the defense of Europe and would improve their existing theater nuclear forces to prove it. It ended up, however, contributing to widespread skepticism about US leadership, particularly that of the president. Here, the individual was key. Whereas Carter’s defense policies aroused some criticism, it paled in comparison to the reaction that Reagan provoked. The fortieth president seemed in the eyes of many to be unreliable, if not dangerous, and bent on confrontation with the Soviet

Union. His inflammatory rhetoric fanned the flames, as he denounced the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and made offhand remarks about the possibility of a limited nuclear war in Europe. His handling of US-Soviet relations sparked fears of nuclear annihilation, leading to a surge in anti-nuclear activism with the peace protests of the early 1980s.

Activists called into question the Western allies’ commitment to détente, seeing the

Euromissiles deployments as illustrative of a hardening attitude in the West. As these critiques gained traction, it placed immense pressure on NATO to prove their value to their publics once more. Like in 1967, the solution was a two-pronged commitment, pairing dialogue—a far less toxic political term than détente—with defense.

Pursuing détente created centrifugal pressures that threatened transatlantic relations. Competing views of how best to manage dealings with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states were intrinsically linked with the overall health and vitality of the Alliance. Press reports did little to help: if pundits and headlines were to be believed, NATO was in a near-constant state of crisis. Legitimate disagreements, hardly 280

surprising in light of the Alliance’s multilateral composition, became critical threats given the perceived importance of transatlantic unity in the face of the Soviet menace. But the very structures of the Alliance also created centripetal pressures which encouraged

NATO’s members to address these differences. So long as they continued to value transatlantic unity, the Western allies remained convinced of the need to address the issues that divided them from one another and endangered public support for the Alliance and its constituent member governments.

Chronic Problems

To some degree, this dissertation tells a familiar story—bordering on the repetitive.

Questions about US leadership and Washington’s willingness to defend the European continent long predated 1967 and show no signs of dissipating any time in the near future. NATO’s multilateral membership, be it an alliance of fifteen or its current iteration of twenty-nine, means that disagreement and debate between the allies are commonplace.

Reports of crisis are part of the everyday landscape in transatlantic relations as pundits and policy-makers speculate about whether the latest rift will be the one that ultimately undermines the whole arrangement.

Exploring NATO’s role in détente sheds new light on the way the Alliance worked, highlighting the disconnect between public perceptions and everyday realities. In the context of the Cold War, it was easy to see the Atlantic Alliance as a US-led institution and for good reason: the United States occupied the role of superpower and 281

offered the organization’s central security guarantee. But that narrative often minimized and papered over the power sharing and the jockeying that occurred within NATO. It was a convenient description, one which suited many of the allies’ political interests. US leadership of the Alliance was a constant reaffirmation of Washington’s power and its role in the world, both before and after the Cold War. For the Western Europeans and the

Canadians, playing up the power discrepancy between the two often offered an out, a mechanism to distance themselves from US policies they—or, more to the point, their publics—did not like.

Such was the case with superpower and European détente. Blame for the deterioration of US-Soviet relations lay with Leonid Brezhnev, to be sure, but also with

Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. By demarcating a separate type of détente, cared for and protected by Europeans, it was a political device to create space between their governments and the bellicose rhetoric emanating out of Washington. Theirs looked like a policy of constraint, designed to reel in US policies deemed too hardline by their electorates. But these mechanisms also amplified the distance between the United States and the rest of the allies, implicitly painting Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan as active opponents of improving East-West relations. Neither was a fair assessment or a complete picture of the president’s thinking. Perceptions of the president’s leadership as untrustworthy or unreliable had their own momentum, however, and once such views had gained traction, they proved difficult to change. 282

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