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Home , Decolonization, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Hallstein Doctrine, Heinrich Homann, Laotian Civil War, NATO

The Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold , 1961–1973

✣ Lorenz M. Luthi¨

Introduction

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was a product of the . Without the political of and between the two and their respective smaller allies in the , the NAM would not have found its place in . In the context of an increasingly globalized contest between Soviet-style and Western , the states that considered themselves non-aligned formed a loose association in 1961 designed to provide them with a collective voice in international relations. However, non-alignment did not mean that all of them were political fence sitters. Some were Communist states themselves, others liberal , and still others conservative monarchies. How, then, did this group of countries come together? Their fundamental concern was the feeling that they had no voice on issues that concerned the whole world. In the context of the nuclear of the 1950s and the danger of a worldwide nuclear conflagration, they believed they had to contribute to the solution of the problem even if they were neither the reason for nor a part of it. Being a potential victim in a future global war was sufficient to claim a voice in the debate at that time. Belonging to a disparate lot of countries was the motivation to form some sort of association. It was no wonder that the calls for a conference of the neutral or non-aligned grew to a chorus during the fifteenth meeting of the (UN) Assembly in the fall of 1960 in New York. Could there have been any better platform than the sole international organization that brought together nearly all of the world’s states, including the neutral and non-aligned? Once established, what was the agenda of non-alignment? In reality, agree- ment on the necessity to find a joint voice was difficult to transform into joint policies. Issuing declarations was easier than finding and promoting solutions to complex problems. This was the result not only of the disparate nature of

Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 18, No. 4, Fall 2016, pp. 98–147, doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00682 C 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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membership but also of the challenging problems that the young movement faced in the and early . Although the movement chose to speak about certain problems, other issues imposed themselves on the agenda. Thus, internal weakness was compounded by external forces threatening to tear apart the movement. Any discussion of the Non-Aligned Movement and its connections to the Cold War requires first a clear definition and demarcation of the terms and problems involved. When the Yugoslav leader called for the creation of a new international movement at the UN General Assembly in the fall of 1960, he sought cooperation among “non-bloc” or “neutralist” countries.1 Although these phrases defined conditions for membership in the soon-to-be-established movement, only the preparatory conference in in defined common goals: first, the “exchange of views on the in- ternational situation”; second, taking measures for strengthening international in the spheres of , , disarmament, nuclear test- ing, and so on; and, third, problems of unequal across the world.2 The first point is not programmatic and the third is outside this article’s focus; hence, only the second point is of interest here. With the exception of the Indochina war, decolonization was not a Cold War conflict, even if the superpowers had some impact on the course of various national liberation struggles. On the one hand, the world’s remaining colonizers in the 1960s (the , , , and ) were all Western countries whereas the supported decolonization movements, at least through propaganda. On the other hand, U.S. support for the colonizing states was inconsistent over the period from the late to the 1970s, and Soviet material support for leftist movements, even beyond formal decolonization, was not usually forthcoming until the latter half of the conflict. Thus, decolonization itself is not a central concern of this article. Apart from the Indochina conflict, the focus here is on issues of international peace, including nuclear arms issues. Through international cooperation, the members of the Non-Aligned Movement, particularly the dominant large countries—, , (initially), and (later on)—wanted to increase their influ- ence in international affairs. The hope was that their joint influence would be greater than the sum of their individual, uncoordinated policies. But if the

1. “Tito Presses Bid for Neutral Bloc,” , 27 September 1960, p. 19. 2. “No. 616,” 14 June 1961, in National of the United Kingdom (TNAUK), Foreign Office (FO) 371/161212, “Conferences of Non-Aligned States in , Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” pp. 1–2.

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Non-Aligned Movement was supposed to influence the international situa- tion, which was, to a great degree, the result of the superpower conflict, it had to engage with both the and the Soviet Union. Thus, the move- ment became automatically a part of the Cold War, even if its members did not want to be formally allied with one or the other superpower. This inherent contradiction of being neutral while being engaged caused great strains within the movement during its first dozen years. Only at the beginning of the 1970s did many of the conflicts, which either existed between the superpowers or were induced by their competition, began to be resolved through direct nego- tiations. Superpower detente´ thus removed an important raison d’etreˆ for the movement, which is why the 4th Non-Aligned Conference in 1973 in Algiers forms a natural endpoint. By the mid-1970s, economic development among the non-aligned had replaced many of their original goals. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Cold War occurred in three forms: first, as the systemic Cold War in the form of the superpower conflict; second, as sub-systemic, or regional, Cold in Europe, East Asia, and the ; and, third, as spinoff conflicts that emerged as a result of either or both of the above. Although the systemic Cold War was rooted in the ideological conflict between great powers with antagonistic visions of the future, its clearest manifestation was the . What set the two superpowers apart from the all other countries, including the smaller nuclear-weapons states, was not only the possession of these weapons but also the sheer availability of large numbers of warheads and delivery systems that assured strategic overkill beyond limited deterrence. Yet, the possibility of a nuclear holocaust engulfing the whole world concerned all of the world’s countries, including those in the Non-Aligned Movement. Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East were the staging grounds of the main sub-systemic, or regional, Cold Wars. For the period under consideration here, the African and Latin American regional Cold Wars are less important.3 The main conflict in Europe was , which emerged divided from II. Although the superpowers were ultimately responsible for the creation and the maintenance of that division, each of the two German states—allied with its respective superpower patron—fought a sub-systemic Cold War against the other. The attempt of both Germanys to impose this competition onto the international scene had an impact on the Non-Aligned Movement in its early years. In East Asia, the Indochina conflict turned from a decolonization struggle into a Cold War dispute through the engagement

3. Even , which caused a crisis in 1962, was not a constant source of tension throughout the 1960s.

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of the superpowers, or their respective allies, such as the People’s of (PRC). As the conflict dragged on, none of the regional actors was able to continue fighting without superpower assistance. The Communist nature of the dominant decolonization force—North —lent this proxy conflict an additional ideological aspect. Finally, the main conflict in the Middle East to this day, the Arab-Israeli dispute, had its roots in the pre–Cold War period. After mid-1967, however, it had assumed the nature of a proxy conflict, similar to the one in Indochina, as both superpowers and their respective allies lined up and supported, in material terms, one side each. However, Egypt’s break with the Soviet Union in 1972 and the resulting process that led to the peace agreement with seven years later blurred this clear line-up. Finally, -off conflicts emerged because the systemic or the sub-systemic Cold Wars produced the conditions or the means for their occurrence. For example, the nuclear arms race between China and India in the late 1960s and early 1970s was not a Cold War conflict in itself, since neither was closely allied with either superpower at the time. However, as the superpowers produced nuclear weapons and the resulting knowledge proliferated, the Sino-Indian nuclear competition spun off from the systematic Cold War. With the periodical framework from the first conference in Belgrade in 1961 to the fourth conference in Algiers in 1973 defined, this article focuses mainly but not exclusively, on Yugoslavia, Egypt, and India. It explores causal connections between the four major issues—Germany, nuclear weapons, , and the Middle East conflict—and the NAM along chronological lines in each of the four parts. The first topic, Germany, deals with the central Cold War conflict in Europe, which was rooted in the attempts of each half of the divided country to fight the conflict on an international scale. The international scene became the substitute playground for a conflict that had been contained in Germany itself by the physical separation of the two halves in mid-, just before the first Non-Aligned Conference. As the 1960s progressed, however, the Non-Aligned Movement remained remarkably resistant to becoming entangled with the German question. Thus, ’s bid to obtain diplomatic recognition by only a clearly defined subgroup of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab Middle East, contains the clear characteristics of a spinoff conflict. Even though the non-aligned countries declared their opposition to nu- clear armament early on, the sudden resumption of Soviet nuclear testing one day before the opening of the first conference forced the emerging movement to engage actively in mediation. In the period until 1964, the non-aligned carried high the banner of total nuclear disarmament and prohibition. However, as new regional nuclear powers emerged, regional spinoff conflicts also emerged

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from the systemic conflict. Although neither the British nor the French ac- quisition of nuclear weapons led to an inner-European nuclear arms race, the successful Chinese nuclear bomb test in 1964 spurred the nuclearization of . The Arab-Israel conflict damaged the declared neutralism of the NAM. After the superpowers had lined up on either side of the war in the Middle East, Yugoslavia dragged the Non-Aligned Movement almost into an with the Soviet bloc. Yet, as Moscow’s own policies in in 1968 helped to reverse this development, non-alignment emerged in the Middle East with a greater emphasis on national independence. However, what turned the Middle East from a regional Cold War conflict back to a regional conflict was not the movement’s policies but Egypt’s decision to break through the superpower alignment in 1972. Similarly, the Indochina conflict had a major disruptive impact on the Non-Aligned Movement. Yet, membership of mainland South Asian coun- tries was limited; Cambodia was the only one to join in the 1960s. The geographical proximity to the , however, drew the country into the maelstrom of this regional Cold War in East Asia. In turn, the Indochina conflict undermined the claim to non-alignment, as the movement took sides in the raging war. Cambodia’s deposed leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was allowed to represent his country in 1972, not the pro-American Lon Nol, who actually was in power in . Although was never allowed to become a member of the NAM in the period under discussion here, the so-called Republic of (RSV), the shadow administration established and controlled by North Vietnam, obtained observer status in the movement in 1972. Evidence for this article comes from a great variety of sources. The archives of former East Germany provide much information on the policies of that country itself, the Soviet Union, and various non-aligned countries. The archives of former Yugoslavia provide insight into discussions within the movement, to which neither the GDR nor the Soviet Union was privy, and into Middle Eastern . The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library hold important materials on the nuclear politics. Czech, Bulgarian, Swiss, and British archives provided otherwise unavailable information.

Germany

The German question stood at the heart of the Cold War in Europe. The victorious allies of World War II decided in 1945 to reduce the country in size

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and to divide it, along with its capital , into four zones of occupation. Berlin emerged as an island of four occupation zones (U.S., UK, French, and Soviet) within the actual Soviet zone of occupation of Germany. As the Cold War unfolded in the second half of 1940s, the chance to sign a comprehensive peace with Germany waned. By 1949, the three Western occupation zones of Germany had merged into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; Germany) and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Re- public (GDR; East Germany). The occupation regimes of Berlin remained unchanged. The unification of the two German halves and the legal status of West Berlin, which emerged from the three Western occupation zones in the city, remained a constant source of conflict in the early Cold War. On the one side, East Germany strenuously attempted to turn West Berlin into a free city—that is, it tried to obtain the withdrawal of Western occupation forces from a location at the center of its own territory—or even to have the whole city incorporated into its own state. In the summer of 1961, this included the call for a separate peace treaty between East Germany and the Soviet Union, which have allowed the GDR to seize control of the transit routes from the FRG to West Berlin, thereby providing the East German with the means to strangle West Berlin economically and politically.4 On the other side, the West German government tried to prevent its East German counterpart from attaining these goals and, above all, from gaining legitimacy and international recognition. The so-called denied third countries the right to recognize both Germanys simultaneously. If a country recognized the GDR, the FRG automatically cut existing diplomatic relations or denied the possibility of the future establishment thereof. For political reasons, allowed the recognition of both Germanys by the Soviet Union in 1955 but always stressed that this was in no way a legal precedent. When Yugoslavia and Cuba recognized the GDR in 1957 and 1961, respectively, the FRG cut diplomatic relations with both.5 The NAM emerged in the context of the festering Berlin problem and the diplomatic isolation of East Germany induced by the Hallstein Doctrine.

4. Manfred Wilke, “Ulbricht und der Mauerbau” [Ulbricht and the Construction of the ], in Klaus-Dietmar Henke, ed., Die Mauer: Errichtung, Uberwindung,¨ Erinnerung [The Wall: Construction, Destruction, Memory] (Munich: dtv, 2011), p. 56. 5. William G. Gray, Germany’s Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949–1969 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2003), pp. 58–86; and Werner Kilian, Die Hallstein- Doktrin: Der diplomatische Krieg zwischen der BRD und der DDR, 1955–1973 [The Hallstein Doctrine: The diplomatic war between the FRG and the GDR, 1955–1973] (Berlin: Duncker und Humboldt, 2001), pp. 52–66.

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From 13 February to 22 April 1961, Tito visited , , , , , and Egypt for extended political talks on a new move- ment of like-minded non-aligned countries.6 At the end of his trip, Tito and Egyptian President sent a letter to 23 countries invit- ing them to a conference in Yugoslavia’s capital, Belgrade, in early September 1961.7 The East German government closely followed Tito’s trip. After GDR- Yugoslav relations deteriorated despite the recent recognition—in parallel to the worsening of Soviet-Yugoslav relations for ideological reasons—East Berlin considered Tito’s trip not only as an attempt at imposing “the revisionist line of the so-called bloc-free policy” on the “young African states” but also as an endeavor to “undermine the influence of the socialist camp on the young national states.”8 Over the course of May, East Berlin, however, had to acknowledge the overwhelmingly positive echo of the invitation.9 The following month, the GDR toyed with the idea of countering Tito’s supposed attempt to seize leadership in the Afro-Asian world by “proving” to the invited that Yugoslavia was in fact not bloc-free. The defunct of 1953 (signed by Yugoslavia, , and ) and the country’s supposed association with the Organization (NATO) offered proof, or so the East Germans claimed, of “Yugoslavia’s bloc status.”10 After the successful preparatory conference in Cairo in early June, the East German government realized that the emerging Non-Aligned Movement was a potentially forceful association of states whose call for world peace could be used for its own political goals and propaganda.11 Over the next four weeks, the GDR Foreign Ministry worked out a plan to “exploit” the impending conference in Belgrade for the purpose of “explaining our policy

6. “Report,” n.d., in Arhiv Jugoslavije [Archive of Yugoslavia, ] (AJ), KPR I-2/13, pp. 1–40. 7. “[Letter],” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/1, pp. 1–2. The list of countries is attached to this document. 8. “Conc.: Assessment of Tito Trip to ,” 24 March 1961, in Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen¨ Amtes, Bestand: Ministerium fur¨ Auswartige¨ Angelegenheiten [Political Archive of the Office for Foreign Affairs, Files, Berlin: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Former GDR] (PA/AA-MfAA), A 5298, p. 27. 9. “On the Planned Conference of the So-called Non-Aligned Countries,” 15 May 1961, in PA/AA- MfAA, A 5298, pp. 54–57; and “On the Summit Meeting,” 18 May 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12618, pp. 9799. 10. “Conference of the So-called Non-engaged in Yugoslavia,” 13 June 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1571/72, pp. 1–3. 11. On the preparatory meeting, see “Final Report,” 12 June 1961, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/1, pp. 111. For a detailed Czech report in German, see “Information,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 10–68. On the GDR’s changing assessment of the movement, see “Assessment of the Conference of the So-called Non-aligned States in Cairo in the Time of 5 to 11 June 1961,” 12 , in PA/AA-MfAA, Ceylon, A 13966, pp. 4–9.

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of struggle for a [separate] German peace treaty and the solution of the West Berlin question on the basis of our peace plan.” To achieve this goal, East Berlin intended to dispatch an observer delegation to the Belgrade Conference, increase its embassy there for lobbying purposes, and promote its positions by sending letters to other governments.12 The foreign ministry furthermore planned to agitate in the participating countries through the existing network of East German trade missions.13 GDR officials also produced a series of short white papers on the alleged militarist and revanchist nature of the FRG, its supposed poor track record on human and democratic rights, and its alleged support for .14 Apart from pushing East German concerns, the goal of all of these activities was to prevent Yugoslavia from supposedly dividing the forces of world peace and “driving a wedge between the socialist and neutral states.”15 Nonetheless, the GDR soon realized that obstacles arose quickly. The Yugoslav government refused the accreditation of observer delegations by uninvited third countries in principle and rejected the request for an increase of GDR embassy staff during the conference in particular. Yugoslav officials emphasized that because they were acting only as the host-organizer, they could not decide singlehandedly on special requests by uninvolved governments. Furthermore, they asserted, the conference would address only the agenda items that the preparatory conference in Cairo had defined; the German question and West Berlin were not among them.16 The GDR, however, was more successful at lobbying one of the invited states. Cambodia agreed that the two issues of East German concern should be put on the agenda.17 Eventually, the German question forced itself onto the agenda on 13 August—less than three weeks before the opening of the Belgrade Conference—when East Germany decided to interrupt the free movement of persons and goods between East and West Berlin. Neither the reasons for the construction of the so-called nor the timing of it was related to

12. “Proposal,” 7 July 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1421/72, pp. 14–20. 13. “Dear Comrade Hoffmann,” 25 July 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, 119–122. As the GDR lacked diplomatic recognition by many of these states, it established trade missions that it tried to use as embassies. 14. Several documents in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 165–166, 171–172, 181–183, 212–218. 15. “Dear Comrade Vosseler,” 4 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 128–32. 16. “Note,” 2 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17171, pp. 3–4; and “Note,” 7 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 133–134. 17. “Excerpts,” 22 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 148–49. In August, Prince Sihanouk wrote to Khrushchev on this issue. See “The Official Position,” 5 , in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1421/72, pp. 119–124.

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the emerging Non-Aligned Movement. Even though the former World War II allies-turned-Cold War antagonists ran two occupation regimes in Berlin— one in the Soviet- east and one in the U.S.-UK-French occupied west—the city had retained the character of a largely undivided entity. This strange set-up facilitated the constant emigration of East Germans who fled through Berlin to a better life in West Germany, thereby undermining the de- mographic stability and economic well-being of the GDR.18 An internal GDR report from late 1960 reveals that, in the ten years following the foundation of the two Germanys in October 1949, East Germany’s population had shrunk by 1.584 million inhabitants (–8.5 percent). Whereas 2.139 million mostly well-educated people had left the GDR for the FRG during that period, only 0.415 million had chosen to go the opposite route.19 Despite the ongoing propaganda about West Germany’s revanchist militarism and East Germany’s commitment to peace, the GDR leader himself admitted to the leaders of the socialist countries during a meeting of the Council of Mu- tual Economic Aid (the economic association of Communist East Europe) on 1 March 1961 that East Germany’s problems were primarily economic, not military.20 But when Ulbricht presented the case of an imminent war threat from West Germany to the same leaders at the meeting on 3–5 August, they formally approved—and thereby politically backed—the closing of the in Berlin.21 With the construction of the wall on 13 August, however, the GDR lost the political justification for its long-standing claim that it had always been working for the peaceful reunification of Germany. After 13 August, the GDR was faced with the problem of how to explain the inhumanity of the Berlin Wall to the emerging Non-Aligned Movement. Gerald Gotting,¨ the head of the Christian (CDU) of East Germany, traveled in Tito’s tracks to Mali, Guinea, and Ghana. The disguise of sending a “non-Communist” to Africa helped East Germany to blur the Cold War nature of the mission. Like all other non-Communist parties in the

18. The borders between the two German states had already been closed before August 1961. 19. “Main Data,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 584/74, p. 13. Data include East Berlin for East Germany but exclude West Berlin for West Germany. Obviously, factors other than migration contributed to the dissimilar population developments. 20. “Speech,” n.d., in Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bunde- sarchiv [Archive of the Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives (Founda- tion), Berlin-Lichterfelde] (SAPMO-BA), DY 30/3405, pp. 1–8. The GDR government dispatched reports about alleged West German aggression against the socialist world even to its own ambassadors abroad. See, for example, “To the Head of the Mission Abroad,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, LS-A 413, pp. 26–35. 21. “Speech,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 476, pp. 1–52; and “Memory protocol,” n.d., in PA/AA- MfAA, G-A 474, pp. 1–30.

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GDR, the East-CDU was wholly controlled by the ruling Communist party (the Socialist Unity Party, SED) and existed solely to create the impression of a multiparty . Yet, the trick worked, and the leaders of the three countries—Modibo Ke¨ıta, Ahmed Sekou Toure,´ and — promised to back East German positions on the peace treaty and Berlin at the Belgrade Conference.22 The East Germans sent Kurt Hager, the head of the SED Ideological Commission, to India and Indonesia from 15 to 28 August.23 He carried a letter to Prime Minister in which Ulbricht portrayed the GDR as a peace-loving country and the FRG as a “threat to peace.” The missive ended with the claim that the recent closing of the Berlin borders “serve[d] ...the maintenance and the securing of peace.”24 In a conversation with Hager on 18 August, Nehru agreed to the East German position on a peace treaty between the GDR and other interested countries if the FRG and the Western powers continued to refuse a comprehensive settlement of the German question.25 Yet, the East German transcript of the conversation suggests that Nehru did not understand the intricacies of the divisions of Germany and Berlin, which made him fall prey to GDR propaganda. Five days later, he stated in the Indian Parliament that “East Germany had a legal right to close the between East and West Berlin” and even claimed, erroneously, that “the Western powers obtained access to West Berlin in 1945 not as a right but as a concession from the Soviet Union.”26 Although the East Germans were happy with the support they received from one of the most important Afro-Asian leaders, Nehru soon found himself in hot diplomatic water.27 After heavy U.S. criticism, he was forced to soften his public statements by deploring the “human suffering” in Berlin.28

22. “Information about the Trips of the Special Ambassadors,” 15 September 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV 2/2.029/111, pp. 142–144. 23. “Prof. Dr. Hager,” n.d., in SAPMO-BA, DA 5/127, pp. 1–14. 24. “Excellency,” 14 August 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV 2/2.029/111, pp. 132–141. 25. “Note on a Talk with Prime Minister Nehru on 8/18, 4 to 5 p.m.,” 18 August 1961, in PA/AA- MfAA, A 13911, pp. 101–104. 26. “Nehru Backs Reds on Berlin Border,” The New York Times, 24 August 1961, p. 3. 27. On the East German reaction to Nehru, see “Prof. Dr. Hager,” n.d., in SAPMO-BA, DA 5/127, pp. 8–10. 28. “Nehru Statement Angers Congress,” The New York Times, 25 August 1961, p. 6; and “Nehru Expresses Berlin Concern,” The New York Times, 27 August 1961, p. 3. See also “No. 1680,” 27 August 1961, in TNAUK, FO 371/161219, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” p. 1.

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Hager’s subsequent visit to Indonesia was less successful. sup- posedly was ill and claimed the need to spend all of his remaining time on preparations for the Belgrade Conference. In a meeting with Foreign Minister Subandrio on 21 August, the East German visitor submitted a letter similar to the one handed to Nehru. But most of the substantial talks occurred at a lower diplomatic level. The Indonesians displayed little interest in Germany, which they considered a “far away” problem.29 On 22 August, while Hager went to Asia, Deputy Foreign Minister Ernst Scholz flew to Belgrade for talks with Tito and hoped that he could continue to Cairo for a meeting with Nasser.30 Ulbricht had already written a letter to Tito on the German problem and the need to prevent Germany from starting a war within only half a century. As he assumed that Tito was more familiar with German affairs than Nehru and Sukarno, the SED leader wrote in greater detail on the Berlin issue. He accused the West German government of using the city as a “fuse to the powder keg” that threatened “peace in Germany and Europe.” Also, Ulbricht asserted, West Berlin was the center of sinister agencies that engaged in the “systemic recruitment of citizens of the German Democratic Republic” for work in West Germany, an activity that amounted to “downright trade with human beings.” Conjuring the ghosts of 1914, he concluded that, in August, West Berlin had been on the verge of becoming a “second .” Consequently, the GDR was forced to close its borders, which made the conclusion of a peace treaty with East Germany “imperative.”31 In Scholz’s conversation with Tito on 24 August, however, the Yugoslav leader paid lip service to the East German cause. He agreed with Nehru’s statement, made the previous day before the Indian parliament, on East Germany’s right to close the border, and promised, as the head of a fel- low , general support in the struggle for a peace treaty. But Scholz realized that Tito made no concrete commitments and that he even hinted that the construction of the Berlin Wall was in fact increasing the danger of war in Europe instead of removing it. Ultimately, the Yugoslav leader refused to promise to raise the German question or the Berlin issue at the impending conference in Belgrade.32 Moreover, the Yugoslav government

29. “Prof. Dr. Hager,” n.d., in SAPMO-BA, DA 5/127, 2–3, pp. 11–12. 30. “Protocol no. 45/61,” 22 August 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/J IV 2/2/787, pp. 1–9. 31. “Dear Comrade President,” 21 August 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV 2/2.029/111, pp. 102– 104. 32. “[No title],” n.d., in SAPMO-BA, DA 5/127, pp. 27–31.

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continued to refuse the request to increase the number of East German embassy staff.33 Although Scholz’s trip to Belgrade was a moderate success, he never made it to Cairo. As early as 15 August, Nasser had reacted negatively to the con- struction of the Berlin Wall, deploring the human suffering it had caused and comparing the division of Germany to the division of .34 In the following days, East Berlin monitored Cairo’s public statements and realized that Nasser did not issue an official statement and that the country’s press was openly pro-Western.35 To add insult to injury, Egypt did not even respond to the request to receive Scholz.36 In a personal conversation on 31 August, the day before the Belgrade Conference opened, Nasser bluntly told Tito that he considered the Berlin issue to be “the product of the conflict between the two blocs” and “not a problem in itself.”37 The feedback the GDR received from the most important participants of the impending Belgrade Conference reflected not only their various levels of interests in the issue at hand but also the fact that the NAM had not yet defined its role in international relations: Was it to mediate between the superpowers, or to stand apart from the Cold War? Clearly, Nehru had seen his role since the 1950s as a mediator in the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.38 His behavior in the NAM in the early 1960s suggests that he continued to see such a role for himself. Tito was caught between his attempt to carve out a special role for Yugoslavia in international relations and his country’s ideological affinity with the socialist camp. Nasser, whose relationship with both the United States and the Soviet Union had reached a low by the early 1960s, was distracted by the concurrent collapse of the .39 Clearly, non-alignment still had to find its focus. Officially, the Belgrade Conference addressed neither the German nor the Berlin question in any systematic manner. Although most participants touched

33. “Dear Comrade Ulbricht,” 22 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 425, pp. 138–139. 34. “Excerpts from an Interview by President Nasser with the West German TV,” n.d., in PA/AA- MfAA, A 12617, pp. 370–372; and “Excerpt from Information I/16.8.61,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12617, pp. 373–374. 35. “On the Question of the Signing of a Peace Treaty with the TwoGerman States and on the Solution of the West Berlin Question,” 21 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12617, pp. 365–368; and “Dear Mister Minister,” 22 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12617, pp. 359–364. 36. “Dear Comrade Ulbricht,” 23 August 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 425, p. 140. 37. “Report,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2, p. 1. 38. Judith M. Brown, Nehru: A Political Life (New Haven, CT: , 2003), pp. 257– 271. 39. The United Arab Republic, formed in early 1958 by the merger of and Egypt, collapsed on 28 September 1961, when Syria declared independence from Egypt.

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on either or both problems in their speeches, the final declaration referred only to the general problems of divided states in world affairs, without mention- ing Germany or Berlin by name.40 As East German diplomats realized, the two questions had threatened to split the conference into a camp supporting East German positions (including Tito, Sukarno, and Nkrumah) and an- other camp insisting on Western positions, with Nehru advocating neither and Nasser demanding to link the German issue to the Palestine-Israel prob- lem. Locked in a four-way battle, the conference participants decided to drop any strong statements on the issue from the final declaration.41 Nevertheless, the GDR concluded that the closing of the Berlin borders and the confer- ence itself had put the FRG on the defensive in German-German relations.42 As an analysis of the conference emphasized, the great majority of the par- ticipants had recognized “the fact of the existence of two German states,” which seemed to augur well for the future diplomatic recognition of East Germany.43 However, East Berlin was mostly disappointed with Nehru, whom the GDR accused of not understanding the threat of West Germany to world peace.44 The East Germans were particularly frustrated that he did not con- sider the German issue of sufficient importance to be included in the UN debates on war and peace and other issues of worldwide significance. They concluded that Nehru wanted to position India between the superpowers at the expense of solving the German issue and that consequently he had acted as a “braking block” during the conference.45 As for Nasser and Tito, the GDR accused both of having evaded taking principled positions on the German and Berlin issues.46 Only Ghana’s Nkrumah had lived up to the promises made to Gotting¨ before the conference; namely, to support GDR positions on

40. “Declaration,” 6 September 1961, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2, pp. 1–14. Many of the speeches can be found in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2. 41. “On the Conference of Non-aligned Nations in Belgrade, 1–5 September 1961,” 23 September 1961, in SAPMO-BA, NY 4182/1236, pp. 45–46. 42. “Notes for 7 September 1961,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 14818, pp. 1–5. 43. “On the Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in Belgrade, 1–5 September 1961,” 23 September 1961, p. 47. 44. “Report,” 11 September 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13966, p. 12. 45. “Assessment of Speech by the Indian Minister President Nehru,” 4 September 1961, in PA/AA- MfAA, A 13966, pp. 42–45; and “On the Conference,” 23 September 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, p. 275. 46. “The Arab Countries on the Belgrade Conference,” 1 October 1962, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13346, pp. 1–10; and “On the Belgrade Conference,” 9 September 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 224– 228.

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theGermanquestionandtheBerlinissue.47 Yet, the East German diplomats in Belgrade also blamed their own government for the meager results of the Non-Aligned Conference. Given the shortage of staff, East Berlin had not pre- pared well for the difficult working conditions of its embassy and had failed to deliver important written materials in time (the materials were distributed to participants halfway through the conference).48 But with the end of the conference, the discussions on Germany were far from over. Having been authorized by the participants of the Belgrade meeting to negotiate with the Soviet leader on nuclear weapons, Nehru and Nkrumah traveled to Moscow on 6 September. In a conversation with Nehru some days later, Khrushchev followed the East German line of portraying West Germany as a “revanchist” and “aggressive” state that planned not only “the incorporation of ...the GDR” but also “the so-called liberation of all East European countries.” Only a peace treaty with West Germany, he claimed, could lead to the “securing and calming down of the international situation.” The Soviet leader again offered a separate peace treaty to East Germany that supposedly would also solve the West Berlin problem if the “Western powers” continued to refuse a comprehensive settlement.49 After being burnt by his own public statements in late August, Nehru refused to make any public commitments in line with East German and Soviet views.50 He did, however, dare to put his finger in an open sore, asking his host “why such a great number of citizens of the GDR had been fleeing to the West” before August 1961. Khrushchev refused to answer.51 On 5 December 1961, Scholz finally submitted Ulbricht’s letter to Nasser in Cairo—more than three months late. The visit was one in a line of en- counters since 1956 between Egyptian and East German representatives that either had been low-level or had not led to any improvement of relations.52 Scholz pushed the well-rehearsed line on the peace treaty and West Berlin and topped previous East German claims about West German revanchism by fantasizing that the Berlin Wall had preempted an impending military at- tack by the FRG. East Germany’s decisive action had supposedly prevented

47. “Assessment,” 7 September 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 14336, pp. 82–84. 48. “Dear Comrade Stibi,” 9 September 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 16341, pp. 101–103. 49. “[No title],” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 765, pp. 85–90. 50. “Assessment,” 22 September 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13919, pp. 89–94. The communiquenoted´ differences of opinion. See “Excerpts,” n.d., in Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen¨ Amtes [Political Archive of the Office for Foreign Affairs, Berlin] (PA/AA), AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, p. 1. 51. “Note,” 13 October 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13919, p. 103. 52. “The Trip,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12681, pp. 11–16.

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an imminent world war. Insofar as the two German states had become a fact of international life, Scholz continued, Egypt should recognize the GDR and assist in obtaining double membership in the UN for both halves of the country. What Nasser thought about these extravagant East German claims is impossible to know from the available documents but probably less difficult to imagine. In any case, he refused to make any commitments beyond the vague promise to exchange technical experts between Cairo and East Berlin.53 In line with his view that the German problem was “the product of the conflict between the two blocs,” he simply asserted that it could be solved “within five minutes” if the United States and the Soviet Union managed to come to agreement.54 Nasser obviously had not fallen for East German propaganda. After failing to influence the Belgrade Conference, the GDR, from September 1961 to March 1962, systematically planned policies to improve its position in international affairs. This included proposals to the FRG for the “normalization” of relations, discussions with the Soviet Union on strate- gies to obtain UN membership, and plans to gain diplomatic recognition from selected states.55 Already in September, East Berlin targeted the non- aligned countries Egypt, Ceylon, , and Burma for that purpose.56 Despite a glowing self-assessment in the spring of 1962 of its most recent diplomatic achievements, East Berlin quickly had to recognize the limitations of its policy given its scarce economic resources and its limited political appeal to most of the non-aligned countries in the Afro-Asian world.57 East Germany was in no better position when the preparations for the 2nd Non-Aligned Conference started in early 1964. Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Ceylon sent invitations to like-minded countries by mid-February for a conference in Cairo in early October.58 Indonesia’s increasingly close relations with the ideologically radicalized PRC decreased Jakarta’s interest in the NAM while increasing its political investment in the Afro-Asian Movement, which Beijing

53. “Report,” 15 December 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV 2/20/373, pp. 237–252. 54. “Report,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2, p. 1; and “Information,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12681, p. 66. 55. Klaus Schroeder, Der SED Staat: Partei, Staat und Gesellschaft 1949–1990 [The SED State: Party, Government, and Society, 1949–1990] (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1998), p. 151; and various documents in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 476 and G-A 478. 56. “Notes for 7 September 1961,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 14818, pp. 1–5. 57. “Session of the State Council on 29 March 1962,” in PA/AA-MfAA, A 14819, pp. 2–9. 58. “Great and Good Friend,” 16 , in AJ, KPR I-4-a/4, pp. 1–3.

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at that time tried to dominate.59 In turn, India, after its disastrous war with the PRC in October 1962, was suddenly more interested in actively working in the NAM.60 However, Nehru’s death on 27 deprived India of its charismatic leader. By 1964, East Germany’s political goals had changed too. The peace treaty, including the solution of the West Berlin problem, was off the table. Once it had become clear that the Western powers were unwilling to give up their positions and rights in West Berlin, Khrushchev backed away from offering a separate peace treaty to East Germany. The best Ulbricht could obtain was a friendship and military assistance treaty with the Soviet Union, signed on 12 , that did not heal the wound of West Berlin at the heart of East Germany.61 Thus, the GDR shifted its focus toward escaping the international isolation the Hallstein Doctrine had imposed. East Germany’s attempts to influence the NAM to that end started as early as the Colombo preparatory conference in March.62 The GDR primarily tried to convince the host government, Ceylon, to put the collective recognition of East Germany on the agenda of the NAM.63 In the end, the preparatory conference decided to put the issue of divided nations on the agenda, without making any concrete commitments to the GDR.64 East German preparations, which included diplomatic on selected non-aligned countries to dis- cuss recognition at the conference and to activate the of fellow socialist states in that direction, continued during the spring.65 Yet, the GDR soon decided not to push for collective recognition, for fear that it might backfire.66 In this context, East German Foreign Minister Otto Winzer trav- eled to Moscow in mid-May to discuss a joint diplomatic line for the entire socialist camp toward the supposedly revanchist FRG and toward breaking the Hallstein Doctrine.67 In the aftermath, the GDR foreign ministry developed

59. Indonesia and the PRC jointly raised the idea of a second conference. See “On the Attitude of the Most Important Neutral States...,” 30 June 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17440, p. 101. 60. “Position of India,” 13 , in PA/AA-MfAA, A 16080, pp. 24–27. 61. “Text of Soviet-East German Treaty of Friendship,” The New York Times, 13 June 1964, p. 2. 62. “Draft,” 19 February 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 16080, pp. 3–6. 63. “Dear Comrade Fischer,” 4 March 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 16080, pp. 17–19. 64. “Conference of the Ambassadors of the Non-Aligned Countries,” 26 March 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17441, p. 166. 65. “Proposal to the Politburo¨ of the CC of the SED,” 30 April 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 16080, 86–93; and “Dear Comrade Staimer,” 6 June 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1572/72, pp. 83–92. 66. “Proposal to the Politburo¨ of the CC of the SED,” 30 April 1964, p. 89. 67. Various documents in PA/AA-MfAA, C 843/75, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3513.

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plans to formulate a counter-Hallstein Doctrine, called the Peace Doctrine, designed to convince the world of the “realities” in Germany.68 Accordingly, East Berlin formulated targeted policies toward different groups of non-aligned countries.69 During the final negotiation for the friendship treaty with the So- viet Union in early June, East Berlin also asked Moscow for diplomatic support for its goals in the non-aligned world.70 A June assessment by the East Germans of the chances of instrumentalizing the NAM for their own purposes concluded that most of those invited had accepted “the reality of the existence of two German states,’ but, with the exception of Yugoslavia, the various positions taken up in 1961 had changed little.71 East Berlin thus repeated its policy of issuing a series of white papers, among them some on the supposedly aggressive West German foreign policy, FRG policies on non-alignment and divided nations, as well as a series of official memoranda to the participants of the Cairo conference on the German question, a postwar peace treaty, and UN membership.72 The GDR mostly feared that the FRG was using generous to enforce the Hallstein Doctrine in the Afro-Asian world.73 Indeed,inviewoftheCairo conference, formulated its own policies to ensure the status quo on the German question and the Berlin issue.74 The GDR received unexpected support from India during President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s visit to the Soviet Union from 11 to 19 September.75 In a joint communique,´ India agreed to the Soviet interpretation of “the fact of the existence of two German states,” which mirrored East German positions

68. “Dear Comrade Ulbricht,” 23 May 1964, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3382, pp. 16–17. 69. “Proposal to the Politburo¨ of the CC of the SED,” 23 May 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 14375, pp. 37–43. 70. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 9469, pp. 36–41. See also various documents in PA/AA-MfAA, C 843/75. 71. “On the Attitude of the Most Important Neutral States...,” 30 June 1964, pp. 94–114. See also “Assessment of Yugoslav Position,” 12 June 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17441, pp. 73–82. 72. “Documentation,” 1 September 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13525, pp. 181–189; “Methods and Arguments,” 6 July 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13525, pp.; “Argumentation,” 7 August 1964, in PA/AA- MfAA, A 13525, pp. 104–123, 129–172. “Memorandum,” 4 September 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13815, pp. 90–92; “Memorandum,” 4 September 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 13362, pp. 12–15; “Memorandum of the Government of the German Democratic Republic,” 4 September 1964, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/5, pp. 1–4; and “Memorandum of the Government of the German Democratic Republic,” 4 September 1964, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/5, pp. 1–3. 73. “Methods and Arguments,” 6 July 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1572/72, pp. 32–71. 74. “The International Conferences of the Developing Countries and the Germany Question,” 17 August 1964, in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, pp. 1–7. 75. “Note,” 24 September 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 640/70, pp. 98–103.

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on this issue.76 Although the communique´ repeated almost word for word the statement issued at the end of Nehru’s visit to Moscow three years earlier, the slight change of the relevant words in favor of East Berlin caused Bonn to lodge diplomatic protests in Delhi in the short time before the opening of the Cairo conference.77 The squabbling continued after the conference with a letter exchange between West German President Heinrich Lubke¨ and his Indian counterpart, Radhakrishnan.78 This row occurred during a time of increased diplomacy by East German representatives who were dispatched to selected non-aligned countries. Vice Chair of the State Council Margarete Wittkowski visited India and Burma from 18 September to 6 October. With regard to Africa and the Middle East, the GDR used the trick of sending supposed non-Communists. The head of the Democratic Farmers Party of Germany and Vice Chair of the State Council Paul Scholz visited Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, and Ghana in the period from 30 August to 6 October, and the head of the National Democratic Party of Germany, Heinrich Homann, was in Egypt and Syria from 22 September to 5 October. Yet, the overall result was mixed. Egypt considered the German question “a burden” to the NAM, India tilted toward West German positions, and only the African countries supported the GDR.79 The trick of sending a “non-Communist” seemingly worked only on that continent. While these lower-level representatives were visiting the world, Ulbricht flew to Yugoslavia on 19 September to speak with Tito on the matter of double membership for Germany in the UN.80 Apart from a show of interest, however, Tito did not offer much support.81 Given the little diplomatic encouragement the GDR had received from the non-aligned countries, the Soviet ambassador eventually intervened directly with Nasser in late September arguing that double recogni- tion would lead to negotiations between the two German states and eventually to a solution of the question once and for all. Thus, the Soviet Union requested from Egypt and the other non-aligned countries a contribution to

76. “Excerpts,” n.d., in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, pp. 1–2. 77. “To the Foreign Office,” 25 September 1964, in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, pp. 1– 2; “Telegram (secret cipher V) from Bonn,” 27 September 1964, in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, pp. 1–2; and “Transcript,” 29 September 1964, in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, pp. 1–6. 78. “Dear Honorable State President,” 19 October 1964, in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, pp. 1–4; and “My Dear President Luebke,” 1 December 1964, in PA/AA, AV Neues Amt, Vol. 17798, p. 1. 79. “Report,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 15892, pp. 359–382. 80. “Conception,” 10 August 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5385, pp. 8–12. 81. “Transcripts,” 9 October 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5364, pp. 203–216.

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peace in Europe through a public affirmation of the existence of two German states and through public support for double membership in the UN.82 As in Belgrade three years before, the German and Berlin issues did not fare well during the Cairo conference from 5 to 10 October. Although Ghana pushed the issue, most participants refused to include Germany in the final communique,´ as this would have required the inclusion of other divided nations, such as and Vietnam.83 In an analysis after the conference, East Berlin realized that a smaller number of participants than in Belgrade had addressed the two issues in their speeches.84 Germany simply was not on the mind of most participants.85 For the East Germans, the conference was anticlimactic. The GDR made inroads in the non-aligned world only after the Cairo conference, albeit for different reasons. When reports emerged in late Octo- ber that the FRG was delivering second-hand U.S. heavy weaponry to Israel, Egyptian–West German relations quickly soured.86 No amount of contrition and policy reversals could save Bonn’s position.87 East Berlin, however, man- aged to turn an existing vague invitation from Cairo into a fixed date for a visit by Ulbricht to Egypt in February 1965.88 Bonn reacted furiously.89 By May, the FRG had normalized relations with Israel, and ten Arab states had cut theirs with West Germany.90 Yet, inner-Arab solidarity extended only to the stand against Israel, not to the recognition of the GDR. Conservative regimes, such as , had no intention to recognize a Communist state.91 Moreover, most Arab states with sympathies toward the GDR were economically too dependent on the FRG to risk further alienation.92

82. “Telegram No. 433/64,” 3 October 1964, in SAPMO-BA, NY 4182/1335, pp. 140–141. 83. “Dear Comrade Stainer,” 5 November 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17441, pp. 236–238. 84. “Report,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17440, p. 229. 85. “The Second Conference of Non-aligned Nations, 5 to 10 October 1964, in Cairo,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17440, p. 197. 86. “Bonn Arms Rise for Israel Seen,” The New York Times, 31 October 1964, p. 8. 87. “Bonn Aide Leaves to Meet Nasser,” The New York Times, 20 November 1964, p. 13; and “Bonn Withholds Arms for Israel,” The New York Times, 11 February 1965, p. 1. 88. “Dear Comrades,” 18 December 1964, in Bundesarchiv (BArch), DC 20/10170, pp. 1–2. 89. “Erhard Charges Nasser ‘Meddles,’” The New York Times, 18 February 1965, p. 1. 90. “Bonn and Israelis Establish Relations; Arabs Cutting Ties,” The New York Times, 14 May 1965, p. 1; and “ Cuts Diplomatic Tie to Bonn over Israel Issue,” The New York Times, 17 May 1965, p. 3. 91. “Telegram No. 234/65,” 20 April 1965, in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 408, pp. 100–101. 92. “The Arab-West German Relationship after the Break of Diplomatic Relations (Information),” 18 May 1966, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3499, pp. 44–57.

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The non-aligned countries of the Middle East moved into the focus of the GDR again in 1967 as East Berlin shifted its attention from the movement itself to its Arab members. However, the GDR did not consciously select this subgroup as such. The countries on which it focused simply happened to be a cohesive subgroup of the movement for unrelated reasons. The background to this shift lay in West Germany. In the mid-1960s, the FRG had started to soften the rigid nature of the Hallstein Doctrine because it had prevented the unfolding of policies designed to isolate the GDR within the socialist world. West Germany was willing to establish relations with Communist states that entertained diplomatic relations with East Germany. When , the enfant terrible of Communist East Europe, recognized the FRG in early 1967, the GDR became anxious about isolation in its own sphere.93 Eventually, a Warsaw Pact meeting in early February decided that no member-state could recognize West Germany until the FRG had recognized the GDR.94 Even as Bonn tried to undermine East Berlin’s position in the socialist world, the GDR undertook measures to weaken the influence of the FRG outside Europe. East German eyes fell on the Arab Middle East. In February, East German diplomats discussed closer relations with and the new, more leftist regime in Syria.95 The following month, the Soviet Union called on Egypt, Syria, , Algeria, and —all of them non-aligned—to recognize the GDR.96 The June War between Israel and its Arab neighbors allowed the GDR to pose as the best friend of Egypt and Syria, two non-aligned countries in the Middle East.97 When Syria announced in the fall that it was ready, in principle, to break Arab solidarity by recognizing East Germany, East Berlin turned to Moscow for advice.98 However, it took almost another year-and-a- half for East Germany to achieve the desired breakthrough. In late April 1969, Iraq, another non-aligned country, broke Arab solidarity by suddenly recogniz- ing the GDR.99 Soon thereafter, but without any obvious causal connection,

93. Schroeder, SED State, p. 156. 94. “Protocollary Transcript of an Agreement,” n.d., in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3396, pp. 153–154. 95. “Note,” 11 February 1967, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 460/77, pp. 99–121. 96. Mentioned in “Brezhnev to Ulbricht,” 7 July 1967, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3519, p. 147. 97. “Message,” 8 June 1967, in BArch, DC 20/4537, pp. 38–40; and “Message,” 8 June 1967, in BArch, DC 4/13002, pp. 70–72. 98. “FS 387/67 of 9/4/67,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 413, pp. 127–128; and “Dear Comrade Gromyko,” 1 , in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1096/71, pp. 148–149. 99. “Comrades Ulbricht, Stoph, Honecker, Axen,” 2 May 1969, in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 419, pp. 1–8.

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Cambodia followed.100 With the Soviet Union exerting diplomatic pressure on countries throughout the Afro-Asian world,101 more non-aligned countries in the Middle East—Sudan, Syria, , and eventually the big prize, Egypt—followed within three months.102 Even if East Germany seemed to be on the cusp of making a major inroad into the NAM, the German and Berlin issues were strangely absent from the agendas of the movement’s Lusaka () and Algiers conferences in and September 1973, respectively. This development was related to events after the election in late 1969 of a new government in West Germany, which scrapped the Hallstein Doctrine. Initially, Moscow and East Berlin compared the new West German to Hitler’s East European expansionism thirty years earlier, although the new West German chancellor, , was a Social Democrat and had been a victim of Nazi persecution himself.103 Nevertheless, what the socialist world initially considered a mortal threat soon showed positive results for Moscow and East Berlin. Because Brandt had realized that a German-German rapprochement was feasible only after the normalization of relations with Moscow, the FRG initiated talks with the Soviet Union in early 1970 that quickly led to the so-called Moscow Treaty on 12 August.104 Fearing East German diplomatic interference, the Soviet authorities closely controlled GDR foreign policy during these difficult negotiations.105 The signing of the treaty occurred less than a month before the 3rd Non-Aligned Conference in Lusaka and thus left the GDR little time to prepare any lobbying activities. By then East German leaders were already preoccupied domestically with the plot to remove the aging and increasingly stubborn Ulbricht already under way.106 The 4th Non-Aligned Conference in Algiers in 1973 occurred less than a year after the two Germanys had agreed to recognize each other—even if only

100. “On the Elevation,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1426/72, pp. 48–57. 101. “Directive to the Soviet Ambassadors in the Countries of Asia and Africa,” 16 May 1969, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3524, pp. 98–100. 102. “Arab Nations’ Recognition of East Germany,” The Christian Science Monitor, 14 July 1969, p. 4. 103. “W. Ulbricht to Dear Comrade Brezhnev,” 20 November 1969, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3525, pp. 253–259; and “L. I. Brezhnev,” 2 December 1969, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/J IV 2/2A/3196, pp. 15–18. 104. “Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Union of Socialist Soviet ,” 12 August 1970, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/62, p. 18. 105. See Mary E. Sarotte, Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, D´etente, and Ostpolitik, 1969–1973 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 106. “On the Talks [with] Comr. L.I. Brezhnev,” 20 August 1970, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3295, pp. 38–42.

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on a sub-ambassadorial level—in late 1972. A few months after the conference, both Germanys entered the United Nations. Thus, by 1973 East Germany’s stubborn and monothematic policy of obtaining recognition had achieved its primary goal. Conversely, non-alignment was no longer prominent in East Berlin’s calculations.107

Nuclear Weapons

Fear of a worldwide nuclear war remained a paramount concern through- out the Cold War. The first use of nuclear weapons, in August 1945 against , marked the transition from Soviet-American World War II alliance to Cold War antagonism.108 The technical sophistication and economic re- sources needed to invent, build, and maintain nuclear weapons, including their delivery systems, set great powers apart from small ones. In the end, only the superpowers, some developed countries, and some large underdeveloped countries had the means and will to seek the acquisition of nuclear weapons. After the United States in 1945, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device in 1949, the United Kingdom in 1952, France in 1960, and the PRC in 1964. Thus, the creation of the NAM occurred between the first successful tests of France and China. Limiting the nuclear arms race and nuclear testing had become a ma- jor issue in the 1950s. The danger of a worldwide nuclear conflagration made nuclear disarmament a concern of all humanity, not just among the nuclear powers. Moreover, Afro-Asian countries opposed nuclear weapons as “racist” arms that were used only against Asian peoples, as with Japan in 1945 and in the case of U.S. nuclear threats during the early .109 The contamination of parts of the Pacific, including a Japanese fishing crew fol- lowing a U.S. nuclear test in 1954, triggered a worldwide protest movement against nuclear weapons.110 The movement included scientists and average

107. In the East German archives, the holdings on the 1961 and 1964 meetings are vastly bigger than those on subsequent meetings. 108. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, , and the (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005). 109. Nina Tannenwald, “The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-use,” International Organization, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Summer, 1999), pp. 444, 446; and F. H. Soward, “The Korean Crisis and the Commonwealth,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 2 (June 1951), p. 123. 110. Lorenz M. Luthi,¨ The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 249.

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citizens in the , as well as a great number of Afro-Asian gov- ernments. Under this international pressure, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom eventually agreed to talk about nuclear is- sues in 1958, without having defined what the final goal of their negotiations should be.111 At the fifteenth meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York in the fall of 1960, African and neutral countries again called on the superpowers to disarm.112 In their invitation letter to the 1st Non-Aligned Conference half a year later, Tito and Nasser called on the “nonaligned countries” to work for the “safeguarding [of] peace in the world.”113 At the preparatory meeting in Cairo in June 1961, however, nuclear weapons did not play a major role, although the meeting’s communique´ listed nuclear weapons and disarmament as areas of concern for the movement.114 Like the German and Berlin issues, nuclear weapons appeared on the agenda of the movement shortly before the start of the Belgrade Conference on 1 September. On 31 August, while on vacation at Yalta, Khrushchev publicly announced the resumption of nuclear testing.115 He thereby unilaterally ended a test moratorium between the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom that had been in place since late October 1958.116 Only France had pierced the tranquility in nuclear testing with four atmospheric tests from February 1960 to April 1961 that established that country as a nuclear weapons state.117 On 27 August 1961, four days before the public announcement, Khrushchev had explained his decision to abandon the moratorium during “the traditional gathering” of socialist leaders from Czechoslovakia, , and the GDR at the Black Sea. Among the 80 persons present were Nkrumah, Hungarian and French Communists, and several Soviet ambassadors. In an

111. Ibid., p. 248. 112. “Neutralists Assert Their Power at U.N.,” The New York Times, 2 October 1960, p. E4; and “Neutrals Woo Asia-Africa Bloc,” The New York Times, 5 October 1960, p. 1. 113. “[No title],” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/1, pp. 1–2. 114. “Information,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, A 5295, pp. 10–68; and “No. 616,” 14 June 1961, in TNAUK, FO 371/161212, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” pp. 1–2. 115. “Khrushchev Asserts His Aim Is to Shock Allies into a Parley,” The New York Times, 2 September 1961, p. 1. 116. John R. Walker, British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban, 1954–1973 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 91–166. 117. For data on the French nuclear tests in 1960 and 1961, see “Database of Nuclear Tests, France: 1960–1996,” sonicbomb.com, 2008, available online at http://www.sonicbomb.com/content/atomic /carc/db/fr.html.

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impromptu ninety-minute speech, Khrushchev reviewed the world situation following the closing of the borders in Berlin two weeks before. The Soviet leader was particularly concerned that the ongoing nuclear talks between the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union had been drag- ging on for three years. Given that the two imperialist powers could test their weapons through third countries such as France while still formally adhering to an international test moratorium, or so Khrushchev claimed, the Soviet Union could not risk continuing to adhere to the ban on its own. He concluded that he was forced to order the resumption of nuclear testing soon, even if this would shock the world. Yet, he asserted, the precise date of the announcement was not yet decided.118 Even if Khrushchev claimed that the tests were “necessary in the interest of strength and the supremacy of defense,” they in reality were political tests.119 Andrei Sakharov, the architect of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, worried about the worldwide environmental impact of the 50-megaton “super bomb” that was supposed to be tested. Khrushchev himself called it a “sword of Damocles” that was dangling over “the heads of the capitalists,” only to be topped by a 100-megaton test in the near future. Yet, he clearly understood that the 50- megaton bomb was already so powerful that it was militarily useless. The atmospheric shockwave of the Novaya Zemlya test on 30 October could be measured even after it had circled the globe three times. A 100-megaton bomb would have blown out windows far beyond the Soviet Union, Khrushchev admitted.120 The announcement of the “super bomb” test one day before the opening of the Belgrade Conference was an affront to the NAM. Many of the states invited had been sympathetic to the Soviet Union because of its adherence to the test moratorium, but Khrushchev’s decision threatened to reverse existing opinions about the superpowers. Diplomats at the UN in New York called the timing of the announcement the “worst Soviet blunder” since the ’s violent suppression of an uprising in five years before.121

118. “Information,” 28 August 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3497, pp. 202–205. Khrushchev’s claim that France was testing for the United States and the United Kingdom displays either an intentional distortion of or sheer ignorance about the independent nature of the French nuclear weapons program. See Richard H. Ullmann, “The Covert French Connection,” Foreign Policy, No. 75 (Summer 1989), pp. 3–33. 119. “Information,” 28 August 1961, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3497, pp. 202–205. 120. Viktor Adamsky and Yuri Smirnov, “Moscow’s Biggest Bomb: The 50-Megaton Test of October 1961,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Vol. 4 (Fall 1994), pp. 3, 19–21; and Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs (New York: Vintage, 1992), pp. 188–232. 121. “Neutrals at Belgrade Talk Angered by Kremlin Move,” The New York Times, 1 September 1961, p. 1.

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Tito himself poured oil on the fire during his speech on 3 September by adopting Khrushchev’s faulty reasoning of France being used by the United States and the United Kingdom for testing during the moratorium. His speech not only irritated those who attended the conference, but led to a serious diplomatic row between Washington and Belgrade.122 At the UN later the same month, Foreign Minister Kocaˇ Popovic´ had to backtrack publicly on Tito’s words.123 The declaration issued by the Non-Aligned Conference on 6 September addressed disarmament only in points 15 and 16, calling it “the most urgent task of mankind” and demanding “the total prohibition of the production, possession und utilization of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons.”124 How- ever, the conference sent Nehru and Nkrumah to Moscow with a letter to Khrushchev expressing deep concern over “the prospect of war which now threatens humanity” and calling for “direct negotiations between Your Excel- lency and the President of the United States of America.”125 A similar letter was carried to President John F. Kennedy by President Sukarno of Indonesia and President Ke¨ıta of Mali.126 Although the letter did not mention nuclear issues by name, Nehru und Nkrumah in their talks with Khrushchev addressed the Soviet announcement of nuclear testing as a major reason for “the sudden worsening of the inter- national situation.” The Soviet leader sidetracked the issue by blaming the international crisis on the German and Berlin issues, as if the Soviet Union or East Germany bore no responsibility for the closing of the borders in the German capital. Eventually, the guests returned to the discussion of the Soviet resumption of nuclear testing. But their host implausibly claimed that the Soviet Union was forced to test because France was testing for the United States and the United Kingdom during the existing moratorium. Ultimately,

122. “Text of Speech,” 3 September 1961, in TNAUK, FO 371/161228, “Conferences of Non- aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” pp. 1–4; “The Belgrade Confer- ence,” n.d., in TNAUK, FO 371/161228, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” pp. 1–2; and “[No title],” 27 October 1961, in TNAUK, FO 371/161226, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” pp. 1–2. 123. “Summary of Speech,” n.d., in TNAUK, FO 371/161228, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” p. 1. 124. “Declaration,” 6 September 1961, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2, p. 6. 125. “Your Excellency,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2, pp. 1–2. 126. “No. 680,” 7 September 1961, in TNAUK, FO 371/161225, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” pp. 1–2. “No. 16 Saving,” 7 September 1961, in TNAUK, FO 371/161225, “Conferences of Non-aligned States in Belgrade, Cairo and Anglo-US Policy Thereon,” p. 1.

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Khrushchev asserted, the Soviet Union would “ban tests but only as a part of a disarmament treaty.”127 The Soviet announcement of nuclear testing turned out to be a double boomerang for Khrushchev. Nehru and Nkrumah obviously were not con- vinced by his explanations of its necessity, as the last sentence in their joint letter to Tito in late September testifies: “As regards the resumption of nuclear tests, we would like to add Mr. Khrushchev’s defense did not carry conviction with us.”128 Furthermore, the Soviet “super bomb” test a month later was the last straw for the United States. In mid-November, the Kennedy administra- tion published intelligence estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities that revealed the Soviet Union did not possess sufficient delivery systems to threaten the United States with a nuclear strike, to say nothing of a strike with the “super bomb.”129 In previous years, Khrushchev had repeatedly used missile bluffs in attempts to blackmail the United States and its allies. The U.S. U-2 spy plane program, which was started partially in response to these bluffs, had revealed already by 1960 that they were just that.130 In the absence of delivery systems, however, Khrushchev’s sword of Damocles dangling over the heads of the capitalists turned out to be a heavy lump of radiating cast iron that he had carelessly dumped on the sensitive feet of the non-aligned countries. By late 1961, the Soviet Union had neither credible nuclear deterrence capabilities against the United States nor much sympathy within the NAM. Frustrated by the lack of progress in the nuclear disarmament talks and by the U.S. decision in early 1962 to resume testing in response to the Soviet tests, the eight “unaligned” members of the Seventeen-Nation UN disarmament session in , among which were four members of the official NAM, demanded on 16 April that the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union start serious negotiations.131 Over the summer, fears of a possible Chinese test spurred the Kennedy administration to put forth two proposals, one on a comprehensive test ban and the other on a limited test ban treaty.

127. “Joint Message,” 27 September 1961, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/2, pp. 1–3. 128. Ibid., p. 3. 129. “U.S. Missile Lead Claimed in Study,” The New York Times, 19 November 1961, p. 1; and William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and his Era (New York: Norton, 2003), p. 488. 130. Luthi,¨ Sino-Soviet Split, p. 165. 131. “Neutrals Submit Plan to Prevent Nuclear Testing,” The New York Times, 17 April 1962, pp. 1–2; Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948–1972 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 233–235; Kendrick Oliver, Kennedy, Macmillan and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1961–1963 (Houndsmills, UK: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 100–108; and Glenn Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 161–162.

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Both included a nonproliferation clause, which the United States hoped would cut Soviet assistance to the Chinese nuclear weapons program. Unbeknownst to Washington, however, Moscow had already stopped its nuclear assistance in mid-1959. More importantly, in the summer of 1962, the Soviet Union had begun to ship medium-range nuclear missiles to Cuba to restore its nuclear deterrence. Thus, Soviet leaders paid only lip service to the U.S. proposals. The in October 1962, however, brought the world close to nuclear war and proved cathartic for Khrushchev’s views on the issue of nuclear war. As relations with the PRC worsened for political reasons, the Soviet leader eventually agreed in to a Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that contained a weak nonproliferation clause.132 This first nuclear arms limitation agreement was almost universally welcomed in the world. Within only a few months, the vast majority of the non-nuclear powers acceded. Among the non-aligned, only Saudi Arabia, Guinea, and Cambodia refused to do so.133 Because of the limited nonproliferation rules of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the efforts to negotiate an explicit nonproliferation treaty con- tinued. The Colombo preparatory conference of the non-aligned in March 1964, however, called for more: a general prohibition and destruction of nuclear weapons.134 Ahead of the second conference in October in Cairo, both President Lyndon B. Johnson and Khrushchev sent letters to Nasser calling for non-aligned support of a nonproliferation treaty.135 On the final day, the conference issued a declaration that not only called on the nuclear powers “to conclude non-dissemination agreements” but stated, “as part of these efforts, Heads of States or Governments [attending the Cairo confer- ence] declare their own readiness not to produce, acquire, or test any nuclear weapons.”136 On 16 October, less than one week after this declaration, the PRC success- fully tested its first nuclear device, thereby becoming the world’s fifth nuclear

132. Luthi,¨ Sino-Soviet Split, pp. 246–268. 133. Ibid., pp. 269–270. 134. “State of Preparations of 2nd Conference of the Non-Aligned Countries,” 2 April 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 17441, p. 152. 135. “Outgoing Telegram,” 2 October 1964, in Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library (LBJL), File 1963–1969, Head of State Correspondence File, Box 55, “United Arab Republic Nasser Correspondence Vol. I [1 of 2],” pp. 1–4; and “Telegram No. 433/64,” 3 October 1964, in SAPMO-BA, NY 4182/1335, pp. 140–141. 136. “Declaration of Cairo Second Non-Aligned Conference on Non-Dissemination of Nuclear Weapons, Issued at Cairo, 11 October 1964,” in LBJL, National Security File 1963–1969, Committee on Nuclear Proliferation, Box 5, “Cairo Resolutions—7/17–21/64 and 10/11/64,” p. 1.

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power. The timing, shortly after the end of the 2nd Non-Aligned Conference and almost simultaneously with Khrushchev’s fall from power, was accidental. But the test helped China to solidify its hold on the Afro-Asian Movement, which it had tried to seize for several years and had developed into a rival move- ment of non-alignment.137 Many of its adherents reacted with jubilation about the first “Afro-Asian” bomb.138 Sukarno’s Indonesia, which had become one of China’s closest partners in the movement, lauded the end of global control by the superpowers.139 North Vietnam, which faced a U.S. military interven- tion after the in early August, believed that Chinese nuclear weapons made it safe against .140 Similarly, China’s ally felt secure against Indian threats.141 Among NAM members, some also could not suppress their joy. Algeria’s welcomed the Chi- nese nuclear bomb as a victory for the Chinese and Algerian people, but he emphasized that he personally opposed nuclear weapons.142 Tanzania’s commented that Chinese nuclear weapons would make the world safer in general.143 The Chinese bomb test, however, had a profound effect on two leading members of the NAM, which had just signed a declaration to forgo all nuclear desires. During a visit of PRC Foreign Minister Chen Yi in Cairo in early November, Nasser asked for nuclear assistance.144 Since early 1964, the Johnson administration had offered nuclear desalinization plants to both Israel and Egypt. The U.S. president believed this would solve two problems. First, it would end fresh water shortages in the Middle East, a problem Johnson

137. Lorenz M. Luthi¨ and Chen Jian, “East Asia: China’s Turn to the World,” Lorenz M. Luthi,¨ ed., The Regional Cold Wars in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East: Crucial Periods and Turning Points (Washington, DC, Stanford, CA: Press, Stanford University Press, 2015), pp. 146–160. 138. “The Reactions of All Sides on the Nuclear Explosion,” 24 October 1964, in Waijiabu kaifang dang’anguan [Foreign Ministry Public Archive, Beijing] (WJBDAG), 113–00397–15, pp. 84–86. 139. “The Circumstances of Indonesia’s Attache´ and Others Speaking,” 22 October 1964, in WJBDAG, 113–00396–09, pp. 27–28. 140. “Reactions to Our Explosion of a Nuclear Bomb,” 20 October 1964, in WJBDAG, 106–00778– 02, pp. 19–20. 141. “The Reactions of Military Attaches in India on Our Nuclear Bomb Explosion and the Fall of the Bald Head,” 17 October 1964, in WJBDAG, 113–00396–07, pp. 46–47. 142. “Reactions to the Explosion of Our Atomic Bomb,” 21 October 1964, in WJBDAG, 107– 00835–03, pp. 12–13; and “Ambassador Hui Delivers the Premier’s Letter,” 19 October 1964, in WJBDAG, 107–00597–01, pp. 22–23. 143. “Brief Report on Nyerere’s Talk,” 1 November 1964, in WJBDAG, 113–00397–15, pp. 88–90. 144. “Record of the conversation by Vice-Premier Chen Yi with Nasser,” 5 November 1964, in WJBDAG, 107–01028–03, pp. 25–42.

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considered to be the cause of much of the Arab-Israeli conflict.145 Second, the plants would allow the secret nuclear programs of both countries to be brought under some sort of outside control and thus prevent a regional arms race.146 Both Middle Eastern countries were interested in the technology but not in the implicit controls.147 Thus, Nasser was willing to turn to China and raised the issue in early April 1965 in Cairo with PRC Premier , who agreed to offer cooperation.148 By late July, a delegation of Egyptian nuclear specialists had arrived in Beijing for the first round of talks.149 Full cooperation was never realized, however. By August, Nasser had decided to align Egypt with the Soviet Union, China’s sworn enemy. The political radicalism of ’s China did not appeal to president.150 Thus, the nascent nuclear relationship with China quickly died. With the Soviet Union unwilling to provide nuclear assistance, Egypt remained a non-nuclear state. India’s reaction was similar to Egypt’s, but the reasons were different. Since the Sino-Indian border war in October 1962, the relationship of the former friends had further deteriorated. Beijing systematically pushed Delhi out of the Afro-Asian Movement, which explained India’s sudden increase of interest in the NAM. India officially pushed for a tough nonproliferation treaty and an immediate ban on nuclear testing, but in light of China’s nuclear test, public opinion in India shifted from a commitment to exclusively peaceful uses of nuclear energy to calls for a nuclear weapons program.151 At the end of the year, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who personally preferred to follow Nehru’s policy of staying away from nuclear weapons, succumbed to public pressure when he agreed to a policy of keeping open the option for nuclear

145. “Memorandum for Mr. Walt W. Rostow,” 18 May 1966, in LBJL, National Security File 1963– 1969, Subject File, Box 8, “Desalting Projects Volume I [2 of 2],” pp. 1–3. 146. “Memorandum for the President,” 25 February 1964, in LBJL, National Security File 1963– 1969, Country File, Box 158, “United Arab Republic Memos [2 of 2], Vol. I 11/63–5/64,” p. 1; and “Memorandum for the President,” 12 August 1964, in LBJL, National Security File 1963–1969, Subject File, Box 34, “Nuclear Weapons-Near East Vol. 1,” pp. 1–2. 147. “Memorandum for Mr. McGeorge Bundy,” 19 March 1964, in LBJL, National Security File 1963–1969, Files of W. Komer, Box 30, “Israel-Nuclear Energy Program, 1964–1965-,” pp. 1–2, 1–9; and “Incoming Telegram 4281,” 6 March 1964, in LBJL, National Security File 1963–1969, Country File, Box 159, “United Arab Republic Memos [1 of 2], Vol. III 11/64–6/65,” p. 1. 148. “Summary of the Individual Conversation of Premier Zhou Enlai with President Nasser,” 1 April 1965, in WJBDAG, 203–00652–02, p. 1. 149. Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi bian [CCP,Central Documents Research Office], Zhou Enlai nianpu, 1949–1976 [A Chronicle of Zhou Enlai’s Life: 1949–1976], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhongyang, 1997), Vol. 2, p. 745. 150. “Report on the Talks of Nasser in Moscow,” 28 September 1965, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/J IV 2/2J/1512, pp. 1–7. 151. “Note,” 3 December 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 640/70, pp. 95–97.

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weapons. However, Chinese threats during the Indo-Pakistani war in the fall of 1965 and the first successful Chinese hydrogen bomb test the following year strengthened India’s determination to pursue nuclear weapons. On 18 May 1974, India successfully tested its first nuclear “device,” becoming the world’s sixth nuclear weapons state.152 Even some of the main leaders of the NAM could not resist the allure of nuclear weapons and their promise to confer upon the aspiring nuclear state increased international (or, at least, regional) political influence. With India’s refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, the Non-Aligned Movement had surrendered its unity in opposing nuclear armament. In the meantime, the superpowers had been holding nuclear talks for some years and eventually signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Interim Offensive Accord in May 1972. Nuclear weapons thus played only a minor role in the Lusaka and Algiers conferences in 1970 and 1973.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict

The Arab-Israeli conflict, at its heart, was not a Cold War conflict. In 1956, both the United States and the Soviet Union supported Egypt during the crisis against Israel, France, and the United Kingdom. At the Belgrade Con- ference in 1961, Egypt was impartial to both superpowers because its relations had soured with both. This position of equidistance had slightly changed by 1964, when the were more sympathetic to Moscow, particularly after Khrushchev’s visit in the spring, which had led to an improvement of relations.153 The short June War between Israel and three of its Arab neighbors in 1967 turned the Arab-Israel conflict into a superpower conflict. During six days of fighting (5–10 June), Egypt broke relations with Israel’s ally, the United States, and the Soviet Union, followed by all East European members of the Warsaw Pact except Romania, terminated relations with Israel.154 The two superpowers

152. Bhumitra Chakma, “Toward Pokhran II: Explaining India’s Nuclearisation Process,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (February 2005), pp. 197–212. The Indian government called the explosive a “device” rather than a “bomb,” but from a technical standpoint the difference is nil. 153. “Assessment of the Visit of the Chairman of the Minister Council and 1st of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, in the UAR from 9 to 25 May 1964,” 31 May 1964, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV A 2/20/890, pp. 1–9. 154. On Egypt, see “Incoming Telegram 007608,” 8 June 1967, in LBJ, National Security File 1963– 1969, Files of the Special Committee of the NSC, Box 7, “UAR,” pp. 1–2. On the USSR, see “Soviet Threatens Sanctions Move,” The New York Times, 11 June 1967, p. 1. On Romania, see “Copy of Telegram 165/67 from 14 June 1967,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 412, p. 170.

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thus found themselves lined up on opposite sides of the conflict.155 Among the non-aligned, Belgrade supported Cairo by following Moscow’s policy of cutting relations with Tel Aviv, while Delhi refused to do so, despite the killing of Indian UN troops by Israeli fire.156 In the Middle Eastern crisis, Tito’s Yugoslavia thus sided with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. During the conflict, the Warsaw Pact members discussed their reaction in a hastily-called, top-secret 9 June meeting in Moscow in which Tito participated as the head of the only non-member state.157 Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union coordinated their policies in the immediate aftermath of the war. Nikolai Podgornyi, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, met Tito twice while traveling through Belgrade on the way to and from Cairo in late June.158 On 11 and 12 July, Warsaw Pact members, except Romania but including Yugoslavia, met in Budapest to coordinate military aid to Egypt.159 Tito traveled to Egypt and Syria in mid-August to discuss political and military cooperation.160 After the meeting of the on 29 August that coordinated the positions of the Arab states, Tito hosted the heads of the Warsaw Pact, again without Romania, in Belgrade on 4 September and in Zagreb two days later for talks on further military and diplomatic aid for Egypt.161 In early November, during the 50th anniversary celebrations of the , the Yugoslav leader met the heads of all Warsaw Pact members—once more without a Romanian representative—who were in Moscow to discuss the ongoing crisis.162 In December, the foreign ministers of the same group of states met in Warsaw to discuss the same issue.163

155. “Yugoslavia Breaks Ties with Israelis,” The New York Times, 14 June 1967, p. 16. 156. “First Information,” 11 June 1967, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1740/76, pp. 1–5. 157. “Report on the Discussion of the Presidium of the CsCP CC on the Report on the Deliberations of the First Secretaries of the Communist and Workers Parties and the Chairmen of the Governments of the European Socialist Countries in Moscow, Which Was Chaired by Comrade A. Novotny,”´ n.d., in Statni´ Ust´ ˇredn´ı Archiv [Central State Archive, ] (SUA),´ Arch´ıv UV´ KSC,ˇ Fond 02/1, Pˇredsentnictvo UV´ KSC,ˇ 1966–1971, 34/36/1, pp. 13, 18–61; and “Note on the Consultations,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-2/33, pp. 1–29a. 158. “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-3-a/101–97, pp. 1–16; and “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-3-a/101–97, pp. 1–18. 159. “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-2/34, pp. 1–59. 160. “Information,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 413, pp. 131–137; and “Note on Yugoslav-Egyptian Talks,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-2/35–3, pp. 1–80. 161. “Note,” 29 , in PA/AA-MfAA, C 523, pp. 131–136; and “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-3-c/7, pp. 1–7. 162. “Report on the talk with the CPSU CC,” n.d., in SUA,´ Arch´ıv UV´ KSC,ˇ Fond 02/1, Pˇredsentnictvo UV´ KSC,ˇ 1966–1971, 48/51/4, pp. 4, 8–38; “Note,” 17 November 1967, in AJ, KPR I-2/36, pp. 1–8; and “Only for Your Information,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-2/36, pp. 1–3. 163. “Warsaw broj 580,” 20 December 1967, in AJ, KPR I-5-c/86, pp. 1–5.

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India came into the picture of Middle Eastern diplomacy very late. As a GDR report surmised, India’s dependence on U.S. grain made it difficult for officials in Delhi to support Egypt without reservation.164 Unlike Belgrade, Delhi did not send diplomats to Cairo for moral support in the immediate aftermath of the war.165 Only in mid-October, in talks with Tito during a visit to the Yugoslav capital, did Prime Minister engage in the Middle Eastern crisis.166 On the way home, she stopped over in Cairo for talks with Nasser.167 During a visit to India for the celebrations of Republic Day in January 1968, Tito conferred with Gandhi and Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosy- gin about the Middle East. The Yugoslav leader reported that the idea of a new Non-Aligned Conference had emerged during his travels through Asia before his arrival in Delhi. According to a contemporaneous Soviet source, the invitation of socialist states to such a conference had been left open for discussion.168 In early February, during a stopover in Cairo on the way back to Belgrade, Tito reportedly told Nasser that the socialist states were a part of the NAM.169 Moscow was content with its diplomatic rapprochement with the non-aligned after a bad start in 1961.170 However, Tito’s pro-Soviet diplomacy threatened the very nature of the movement. If the socialist states suddenly were a part of non-alignment, how non-aligned would the movement still be? Tito never had to face this question head-on, as Soviet actions destroyed the basis for cooperation within half a year. On 21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and three of its Warsaw Pact allies intervened militarily in another Pact ally, Czechoslovakia, with the goal of restoring there, or so the claim went. Twomember-states did not participate: Romania, which condemned the intervention; and the GDR, which heartily supported it but did not intervene itself because the Soviet Union decided that German troops should not enter Czechoslovak territory because of the memory of German occupation a quarter century earlier.171

164. “First Information,” 11 June 1967, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1740/76, pp. 1–5. 165. For example, Foreign Minister Popovic´ was in Cairo as early as 11 June. See “Trip to the United Arab Republic,” 17 June 1967, in AJ, KPR I-2/35–3, pp. 17–23. 166. “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-3-a/38–45, pp. 1–11. 167. “Mrs. Gandhi Lands in Cairo,” The New York Times, 20 October 1967, p. 20. 168. “Note,” 4 April 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1575/72, p. 10. 169. “On the Yugoslav View,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 373/75, pp. 25–26. 170. “Note,” 13 , in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1575/72, pp. 11–15. 171. Mihai Retegan, In the Shadow of the (Ias¸i,Romania:CenterforRomaniaStudies, 2000); and Andreas Malycha and Peter Jochen Winters, Die SED: Geschichte einer deutschen Partei [The SED: History of a German Party] (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2009), p. 188.

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The Soviet-led intervention revealed the high level of disunity within the NAM with regard to major issues in international relations. Yugoslavia found itself in a small group of socialist countries, including China and Romania, that feared they could be targets of what later became known as the : Moscow’s self-appropriated right to intervene in the internal affairs of other states if it saw the socialist order threatened there.172 Less than a fort- night before the Warsaw Pact intervention, Tito had visited Czechoslovakia in a show of political support for the reform movement there.173 On the day of the intervention, in an interview with the official Yugoslav press agency Tan- jug, Tito accused the Warsaw Pact of “trampling the of a socialist country with its feet.”174 In an official letter to all Warsaw Pact members, Tito warned of adverse consequences in international relations.175 A GDR analysis condemned Yugoslavia for comparing the intervention in Czechoslovakia with the “US aggression against the Vietnamese people and the Israeli aggression against the Arab people.”176 Yet, the Yugoslavs felt militarily and politically threatened. In the aftermath of the intervention, Tito ordered the Yugoslav army to be prepared in case “Soviet forces were to attempt an invasion.”177 In the sphere of diplomacy, the Yugoslav leader and his Romanian counter- part, Nicolae Ceaus¸escu, successively hosted two Czechoslovak reformers on 23 August and met personally the following day in a town near their com- mon border to coordinate their positions with regard to the Warsaw Pact intervention.178 At the same time, Soviet-Yugoslav relations deteriorated quickly.179 On the Soviet side, some advisers believed that Moscow had been too soft on Belgrade in years past and should have acted earlier to crack down on revisionism there.180 Soviet leaders realized, however, that Yugoslav dissatisfaction with the Warsaw Pact was so deep it threatened to turn the NAM against the socialist

172. Lorenz Luthi,¨ “Restoring Chaos to History: Sino-Soviet-American Relations in 1969,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 210 (June 2012), pp. 378–397. 173. “Information,” 15 August 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1171/72, pp. 137–140. 174. “Tito Interview with Tanyug,” 21 August 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1570/72, p. 161. 175. “[No title],” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 417, pp. 36–37. 176. “Information,” 1 October 1968, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV A 2/20/1158, p. 45. 177. “Yugoslavia Bolstering Defense against a Soviet Intervention,” The New York Times, 27 August 1968, p. 6. 178. “Premier Is in ,” The New York Times, 24 August 1968, p. 15; and “Information,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-3-a/97–22, pp. 1–6. 179. “Note,” 6 September 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1570/72, pp. 115–118. 180. “Information Report 30/1968,” 24 September 1968, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV A 2/20/163, p. 2.

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world.181 Moscow tried to mend fences by sending Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to Belgrade for a week in early September 1969, though to little avail.182 An improvement of relations occurred only in 1971, leading to Tito’s June 1972 visit to Moscow, when he received the Lenin Order for his past achievements in socialist world politics.183 On the day of the Warsaw Pact intervention, 21 August 1968, Indira Gandhi expressed in parliament “her profound concern” about the violation of “the principle of non-interference ...[which] constitutes the very basis of .” Although she mentioned that India had good relations with the socialist world, she concluded her report by “giv[ing] expression to our anguish at the events in Czechoslovakia.”184 In a speech to the UN General Assembly in October, she returned to the Warsaw Pact intervention in a “more pronounced way,” as a GDR report noted. In December, a Soviet adviser indicated to a Bulgarian diplomat that Czechoslovakia had become a burden to Soviet-Indian relations but that Gandhi had tried to keep the fallout within limits.185 India’s anguish, however, soon dissipated as the country’s strategic needs moved to the forefront. When the Sino-Soviet border conflict escalated to intense military clashes in early March 1969, Moscow and Delhi closed ranks against Beijing. Soviet Defense Minister Andrei Grechko visited India in early March, promising military aid against the PRC in the Himalayas.186 Based on British intelligence, U.S. State Department sources claimed that even the exchange of sensitive information on Chinese troop movements was discussed.187 Yet, the stiff policy the Soviet Union embarked on toward China in the aftermath of the border clashes, including a proposal for an Asia-wide system against the PRC, did not find adherents in India.188

181. “Note,” 24 October 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1575/72, p. 1. 182. “On the Visit,” 7 September 1969, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1235/75, pp. 98–105. 183. On Mirko Tepavac’sˇ visit to Moscow in February 1971, see “On USSR/SFRY Relations,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 404/75, 15–19. On Leonid Brezhnev’s visit to Belgrade in , see “Information No. 26/X,” 5 October 1971, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/J IV 2/2J/3689, pp. 1–8. On Tito’s visit to Moscow in June 1972, see “Information,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-2/53, pp. 1–25. 184. “Delhi, Broj 740,” 21 August 1968, in AJ, KPR I-5-b/39–8, pp. 1, 3. 185. “Report by Pervan Chernev—Ambassador,” 30 December 1968, in Arkhiv na Ministerstvoto na Vnshnite Raboti [Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, Sofia], Opis 20p, a. e. 419, pp. 74–84. 186. “Grechko on 3–9 Promises Aid to India if PRC Attacks,” The New York Times, 10 March 1969, p. 1. 187. “From American Embassy in New Delhi to Secretary of State,” 3 April 1969, in National Archives and Records Administration, State Department, RG 59, Central Files, 1967–1969, Box 2679, “POL 7 USSR 1/1/69,” p. 1. 188. “Information on the Position India’s to the Soviet Proposal for the Establishment of a Security System...,” 8 April 1970, in Bundesbeauftragte fur¨ die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der

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The events in Prague in August 1968 had reminded Delhi of Moscow’s selfish foreign policy. Whereas Tito and Gandhi condemned the Warsaw Pact intervention, Nasser was caught on the wrong foot. In early , the Egyptian leader had visited the Soviet Union for the third time (after 1958 and 1965). Given the lack of progress toward any solution in the Middle Eastern crisis, he sought military assistance for his country and Soviet diplomatic pressure on Israel via its ally the United States.189 But six weeks after his strategic visit to Moscow, on 21 August, Nasser found himself in the quicksand of Soviet foreign policy. Initially, Egypt supported the intervention, but a GDR report claimed that Nasser did so only because he believed the unity and stability of the socialist camp was better for his own strategic needs.190 As the international fallout from the Warsaw Pact intervention became obvious, Cairo fell silent.191 A Swiss embassy report asserted that the Egyptian people were restive and their government embarrassed. Moscow had claimed to oppose imperialists following the June 1967 war and then, just fourteen months later, had behaved like one.192 What did the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia mean for the NAM and its planned third conference? After the intervention, the whole- sale inclusion of the socialist world was off the agenda. As in 1961, the Soviet Union’s own actions had greatly damaged its reputation within the NAM. Because Tito had taken the initiative of allying the movement with the Warsaw Pact after June 1967, he again took the lead in separating it from the socialist world after August 1968. The Yugoslav leader had originally planned to call for a possible third meeting to focus on the Middle East and Vietnam but decided in September that such a focus was no longer

ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik [Federal Commissioner for the Documents of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic, Berlin)] (BStU), MfS HVA 163, pp. 247–251. 189. “Individual Information on the Assessment of the Visit of UAR President Nasser on 5 July and 10 July 1968, to Moscow by Egyptian and West German Political Circles,” 21 August 1968, in BStU, MfS HVA 133, pp. 150–154. 190. “Dear Comrade Minister,” 16 September 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1194/71, p. 2. 191. “Soviet Diplomacy Seems Damaged,” The New York Times, 27 August 1968, p. 8. 192. “Political Report no. 18,” 28 August 1968, in Bundesarchiv Bern, Bern (BA Bern), E 2300–01, Akzession 1973/156, Box 24, “1968 p.a. 21.31 Kairo Politische Berichte,” pp. 1–3. See also talks between Yugoslav ambassador and Tito in early September: “Note on a Conversation of President of the Republic with the Newly Appointed Ambassador of the United Arab Republic in Yugoslavia, Mr. Yehi Abdel Kaderim, Presenting His Accreditation Letter, on 4 September 1968, in Brioni,” in AJ, KPR I-3-a/121–46, pp. 1–7.

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appropriate.193 Soviet diplomats realized a month later that Yugoslavia was working on Asian and African member-states to put non-interference in do- mestic affairs on the agenda. However, they also noted that India and Egypt “advocated preparing such a conference with all due diligence and not to ac- celerate its organization.”194 By January, Belgrade had obtained the agreement of Delhi, Jakarta, , , and Cairo to call a consultative confer- ence in the Yugoslav capital.195 On 7 February, in Nasser’s presence in Cairo, Tito announced the consultative conference for the summer of 1969.196 As the 9–12 July date moved closer, Belgrade not only emphasized interest in placing non-interference at the head of the agenda but called for a focus on national liberation.197 After his gaffe of seeking a quasi-alliance with the socialist camp, Tito wanted to use national liberation to keep Yugoslavia “in the limelight.” As even some Yugoslav officials hinted, their leader faced difficulties in finding a sufficient number of topics to help salvage a movement that had acquired an air of “vieux jeu.”198 Nevertheless, 51 of the 57 countries that had attended the 1964 conference reacted positively to the invitation.199 In the end, however, the conference was a “gathering of lesser men speaking with an uncertain voice,” a British report mockingly pointed out. Nehru, Sukarno, Nkrumah—all had “disappeared from the scene,” and the “chastened” Nasser did not attend.200 With the first two days wasted on procedural issues, the conference turned to issues of substance only on 11 July. After five hours of debate on whether to admit liberation movements in principle, a representative of the Pales- tine Liberation Organization (PLO) was granted a hearing. Other liberation movements, such as the National Liberation Front (NLF) from South Viet- nam, did not even get that far, although Algeria demanded their inclusion. In turn, Algeria blocked the Yugoslav proposal to admit countries formerly

193. “Conversation with Mr. Pekic,” 3 July 1969, in TNAUK, FCO 28/867, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” p. 1. 194. “Note,” 24 October 1968, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1575/72, pp. 1–2. 195. “Foreign Policy: On the Trip by Belovski,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 339/75, p. 70. 196. “Memorandum,” n.d., in TNAUK, FCO 28/868, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” p. 1. 197. “Foreign Policy: On the Conference of Non-Aligned States,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 340/75, pp. 53–54; and “Non-Aligned Consultative Meeting in Belgrade,” 4 July 1969, in TNAUK, FCO 28/867, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” pp. 1–2. 198. “Telegram No. 260,” 30 June 1969, in TNAUK, FCO 28/867, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” pp. 1–3. 199. “Foreign Policy: On the Belgrade Consultative Conference,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 341/75, pp. 19–20. 200. “Non-Alignment Consultative Meeting in Belgrade,” 25 July 1969, in TNAUK, FCO 28/868, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” pp. 1, 2.

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aligned in military pacts but supposedly “at heart pursuing policies close to non-alignment.”201 Tito had in mind Romania, Czechoslovakia (!), , , Tunisia, and Pakistan.202 The issue of non-interference in domestic affairs, which had triggered the Yugoslav call for the gathering, attracted little attention.203 The inner conflicts of the movement became public when some par- ticipants criticized the final communique´ immediately after its release. The document endorsed the unspecified idea of a “third-world summit meeting” and the “full of the rights of the Arab people of Palestine to their usurped land.”204 Certainly the Belgrade consultative meeting neither went according to Tito’s ideas nor was a show of unity, as outside observers remarked.205 Despite the fact that the Yugoslav leader did not get his way, a GDR report concluded, the very fact that the conference had occurred in- dicated the strengthening of the movement itself and Tito’s position within it.206 The Middle East as a Cold War conflict did not play a major role during the Lusaka Conference in September 1970 or the Algiers Conference three years later. One reason for this development was related to the . After June 1967, many civilians and guerrilla fighters had left the Israeli-occupied for proper. The resulting demographic and political conflict in the thinly populated kingdom reached its peak in the late summer of 1970, particularly after the United States had offered a peace plan (the ) for the Middle East.207 Before the start of the Lusaka conference on 7 September, fighting erupted between radical Palestinian groups and the Jordanian army.208 On the day of the opening, a PLO splinter group, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hijacked three U.S. and one Swiss aircraft and had then flown to an abandoned air strip in Jordan. The passengers

201. “Telegram No. 271,” 11 July 1969, in TNAUK, FCO 28/868, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non- Alignment,” pp. 1–2. For the Palestinian speech, see “A Struggle to Recover Our Rights,” n.d., in TNAUK, FCO 28/868, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” p. 1. 202. “Extract,” n.d., in TNAUK, FCO 28/868, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” p. 1. 203. The daily bulletins on the talks are in AJ, KPR I-4-a/7. 204. “Nonaligned Bloc Ends 4-Day Talks: Belgrade Session Calls for a World Summit Meeting,” The New York Times, 12 July 1969, p. 5. 205. “Assessment,” 22 July 1969, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1576/72, pp. 14–22. 206. “Foreign Policy: On the Policy of Non-Alignment,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 341/75, p. 172. 207. Abdel Magid Farid, Nasser: The Final Years (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1994), pp. 179–185; and “Rogers Mideast Proposals Set Middle East Capitals Abuzz,” The Christian Science Monitor,1July 1970, p. 11. 208. Farid, Nasser, pp. 205–206.

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were allowed to disembark, but the Palestinian fighters blew up the empty planes to demonstrate their opposition to U.S. support for Israel.209 Caught in between, the PLO appealed to Arab states for mediation.210 In the face of the brewing crisis, Nasser did not even go to Lusaka. On 5–6 September he hosted an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo that was supposed to search for an end to the strife in Jordan.211 After engaging in frantic diplomatic efforts for weeks to defuse the crisis, Nasser managed to get a Palestinian-Jordanian armistice agreement on 27 September 1970.212 The following day, the chronically ill Egyptian leader suffered a fatal heart attack.213 Nasser’s successor, Anwar , soon realized that he had to separate the Arab-Israeli conflict from the Cold War in the Middle East. To be fair, the Soviet Union had not exacerbated the Jordan crisis; it had pushed its allies in the to follow moderate policies. Moscow had strongly urged to withdraw its military support for the Palestinians in Jordan and to call off a military intervention with and infantry.214 Yet Sadat understood by 1971 and early 1972 that Soviet policies in the Middle East were not conducive to the ultimate settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Rather, he believed, Moscow’s approach had merely cemented the status quo.215 Only the United States could convince Israel to come to the negotiation table, but this required the improvement of U.S.-Egyptian relations first.216 In July 1972, a month after Tito had visited Moscow to receive his Lenin Order, Sadat abrogated his country’s friendship and military assistance treaty with the Soviet

209. Mentioned in “Hijackers in Cairo Say They Blew Up 747 in Retaliation for U.S. Support of Israel,” The New York Times, 8 September 1970, p. 16; and “Arabs Blow Up 3 Jets in Desert after Taking Off Passengers,” The New York Times, 13 September 1970, p. 1. 210. Abu Iyad and Eric Rouleau, My Home, My Land: A Narrative of the Palestinian Struggle (New York: Times Books, 1981), pp. 80–81. 211. “Arab League Asks End of Jordan Strife,” The New York Times, 7 September 1970, p. 2. 212. “Agreement on the Termination of the War in Jordan,” 28 September 1970, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 7662, pp. 63–65. 213. “Diplomats at U.N. Express Sorrow,” The New York Times, 29 September 1970, 17. For infor- mation about his chronic illness, see “Information no. 69/VIII,” 15 August 1969, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/IV A 2/20/888, pp. 291–297. 214. “Note,” 24 September 1970, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 7662, pp. 48–51. 215. The deterioration of Egyptian-Soviet relations by the spring of 1972 is clearly visible in the following report, which is clearly based on Soviet information: “On the Situation,” n.d., in PA/AA- MfAA, C 1115/75, pp. 3–9. 216. “Secret Cairo 662,” 25 March 1971, in Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, CA (NPLM), NSC files, HAK Office Files, Box 129, Country Files: Middle East, “Nodis/Cedar/Plus 1971” [1 of 2] (3 of 3), p. 1.

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Union.217 The Egyptian leader immediately informed U.S. President , hinting at his hope for U.S. diplomatic engagement in the Middle East.218 The diplomatic response Sadat had hoped to receive from the United States did not materialize, however. Washington was too occupied with the final military and political struggles of the Vietnam War and the impending presidential election.219 Without any prospects for U.S. diplomatic assistance, Sadat was caught in limbo between the Arab-Israeli conflict, which he was trying to solve, and the Cold War in the Middle East, which he attempted to eliminate. He thus turned to a new strategy, first by deciding to go to war against Israel to force the Arab-Israeli conflict onto the international agenda, and second by mobilizing support from international organizations outside the Cold War order.220 His goal was to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the United States and , to solidify post-conflict solidarity, and to isolate Israel internationally. Thus, unlike the ad-hoc and unsuccessful boycott in 1967, the Arab League coordinated its oil policies well ahead of the conflict, as early as the spring of 1973.221 The Organization of African States, under Egyptian prodding, linked South African apartheid to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the .222 As a Swiss embassy report from April 1973 asserted, Egypt’s gamble on international solidarity was more likely to work this time than in 1967, when only a small number of states in the Third World were critical of Israel.223

217. “Orders by Sadat,” The New York Times, 19 July 1972, 1; and “Note,” 21 September 1972, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 166/74, pp. 45–53. 218. “Confidential Cairo 2029,” 18 July 1972, in NPLM, NSC files, Country Files, Box 638: Middle East, “Arab Republic of Egypt (UAR) 1972 VIII” [2 of 2], pp. 1–4. 219. Lorenz M. Luthi,¨ “Beyond Betrayal: Beijing, Moscow, and the Negotiations, 1971–1973,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter 2009), pp. 57–107. 220. The Swiss embassy in Cairo informed its government of Egyptian attack plans as early as May 1973. See “Political Report No. 13,” 7 May 1973, BA Bern, E 2300–01, Akzession 1977/30, Box 2, “1973 p.a. 21.31 Politische Berichte,” pp. 1–2. 221. Another Swiss embassy report from mid-May reports on the connection between the war plans and the oil boycott. See “Telegram No. 184,” 18 May 1973, in BA Bern, E 2300–01, Akzession 1977/30, Box 4, “1973 p.a. 21.31 Kairo Politische Berichte,” pp. 1–2. The FRG government received similar reports in late May. See “Telex (Coded) from Cairo No. 813,” 29 May 1973, in PA/AA, B1, Ministerburo,¨ Vol. 553, pp. 1–2. 222. “On the Relations URE-African States,” 16 December 1974, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 863/77, pp. 15– 21. Indeed, 21 African states cut relations with Israel just before, during, or after the October War. See “Information on the Position of African States on the Near East Conflict,” 11 November 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1435/75, pp. 1–7. 223. “Political Report No. 9,” 12 April 1973, in BA Bern, E 2300–01, Akzession 1977/30, Box 4, “1973 p.a. 21.31 Kairo Politische Berichte,” p. 8.

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This was the context in which the 4th Non-Aligned Conference met in Algiers on 5–9 September, just a month before the start of the October War. Preparations for the new conference had started in early January.224 Following the signing on 27 January of the Paris Agreements, which terminated the U.S. military engagement in Vietnam, Yugoslav media stressed that all other inter- national problems should also be solved by negotiations. Thus Belgrade called on the non-aligned to organize a conference of all Mediterranean countries to help solve the Middle Eastern crisis.225 Although an official Egyptian delega- tion visiting Yugoslavia in February agreed to this idea in principle, Cairo by then had already decided to seek a solution through confrontation.226 Once it was clear that Tito’s plans had not found an echo, he fell back on his call for cooperation with the socialist world in the Middle East.227 With regard to the Middle East, two aspects of the Lusaka conference were remarkable. First, PLO leader Arafat was allowed to give a speech in which he vocally accused Israel of bad faith in seeking a solution to the crisis, defined non-alignment as anti-U.S. imperialism, and lauded the role of the socialist world in the Palestinian struggle.228 In that vein, the Arab states formulated a in the final declaration that called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories. Yet, the final version was less sharp than an earlier draft, insofar as it did not seek the unrealistic goal of calling on the United States and other states to boycott Israel.229 More important, however, was Sadat’s quiet diplomacy of mobilizing the NAM for the impending showdown with Israel.230 As his talks with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev after the October War reveal, Tito seemed not to have understood what Sadat was up to. The Yugoslav leader continued to stress cooperation with the socialist world.231 Sadat was trying to instrumentalize the NAM for his regional goals, whereas Tito still saw its role as within the Cold War context.

224. See documents in AJ, KPR I-4-a/11. 225. “Foreign Policy,” 21 February 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 329/75, p. 89. 226. “Foreign Policy,” 7 March 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 329/75, pp. 102–103. 227. “Information,” 2 July 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 862/76, pp. 36–40. 228. “On the Appearance of the PLO on the Conference of the Non-aligned States in Algiers,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 7688, p. 1–5. See also Tito’s conversation with Arafat, “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/15, pp. 1–5. 229. “From Algiers 091215Z,” n.d., in TNAUK, FCO 63/1053, “Non-aligned Summit Conference in Algeria,” p. 1; and “Algiers: The Non-aligned Conference,” 26 September 1973, in TNAUK, FCO 93/9, “Conference of Non-aligned States Held in Algiers, 5–9 September 1973,” p. 8. 230. See Tito’s conversation with Sadat, “Note,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/15, pp. 1–4. 231. “[No title],” 28 November 1973, in SAPMO-BA, DY 30/13951, p. 21.

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Getting rid of the Cold War in the Middle East turned out to be a winning strategy for Sadat but not for the Palestinians. While Washington and Moscow agreed to an international conference to solve the Middle Eastern conflict after the October War, U.S. diplomacy between Egypt and Israel ultimately helped end the military entanglements on the Sinai dating to 1967.232 However, the Egyptians came to understand over the years after 1973 that the United States still had not abandoned the idea of cooperation with the USSR in solving the thorny issue of the Middle Eastern crisis, and thus they turned to Romania in the summer of 1977 for mediation in the Egyptian-Israeli conflict.233 Later that year, Sadat flew to Israel on a Yugoslav plane for his seminal visit that led to a peace agreement with Israel in early 1979.234 In the end, neither the Cold War nor the NAM helped to solve even one aspect of the Middle Eastern crisis.

The Indochina Conflict

The Non-Aligned Movement got involved in the Indochina conflict through the membership of Cambodia, one of three NAM countries in . Both superpowers had been drawn into the decolonization struggle of continental Southeast Asia through their involvement in the First Vietnam War ( War, 1945–1954) following the outbreak of the Korean War (1950–1953). At the in the spring and summer of 1954, the participants failed to resolve the Korean conflict, and the United States, claiming non-combatant status, stayed away from the agreements on Indochina and on the temporary division of Vietnam into a Communist north and a pro-Western south.235 At the time of the 1st Non-Aligned Conference in Belgrade in 1961, the prospect of renewed war in Vietnam seemed increasingly ominous. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the United States were heading toward full military conflict. The DRV had decided by 1959 to seek a military solution to the failed reunification, and the United

232. William B. Quandt, American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967 (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1993), pp. 183–222. 233. “Rumanian Good Offices Are Accepted to Begin,” The New York Times, 27 August 1977, p. 37; and “On the Position,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 7421, pp. 1–4. 234. “Applause at Airport,” The New York Times, 19 November 1977, p. 47. 235. The Geneva agreements are available in , Vol. 1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), pp. 279–282.

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States economically and militarily supported the recalcitrant regime in the south.236 In neighboring , a had erupted between the royal government and a Communist-inspired guerrilla force. From April 1961 to , the superpowers participated in the Geneva conference on Laos, which ended with the neutralization of the country but did not really solve any of the underlying problems.237 In this context Cambodia attended the Belgrade Conference in 1961. The country had carved out a stand of neutrality in international relations, and thus gained membership in the NAM by refusing to discriminate diplomatically against one or the other half of the world’s divided states; it would simply recognize either none or both.238 However, neither Cambodia as a participant nor Indochina as a topic played a major role in Belgrade in 1961. The 2nd Non-Aligned Conference in Cairo occurred just two months after the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which triggered the Second Indochina War (the American Vietnam War, 1964–1973). In its wake, Cam- bodia’s policy of neutrality and commitment to non-alignment came under severe pressure for the first time. With war imminent across the eastern border, Cambodia’s leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, traveled to Beijing to confer with Mao Zedong. The Chinese leader strongly advised that Cambodia change its diplomatic outlook by cutting diplomatic relations with the United States and establishing them with North Vietnam. Sihanouk himself had already called for a conference of the Indochinese peoples to discuss cooperation in the impending conflict. Apart from his decision to refocus his attention on Indochina, he also decided in Beijing not to attend the impending Cairo con- ference personally.239 Sihanouk was willing to engage more strongly with the aligned DRV than with the NAM. Accusing South Vietnam, the U.S. ally, of bombing campaigns against neutral Cambodia, Sihanouk’s government by late October severed relations with Washington and Saigon and recog- nized .240 Having been dragged into a nasty war on its eastern border,

236. William J. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1996), pp. 199–201. 237. Martin Stuart-Fox, A (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 118–126. 238. “The Official Position,” 5 December 1961, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1421/72, pp. 119–124; and “Note,” 22 November 1967, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1426/72, pp. 45–47. 239. “Information,” 12 December 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12206, p. 23. See also “Mao Zedong and Cambodian Prince Sihanouk, Beijing, 28 September 1964,” in et al., eds., “77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964–1977,” CWIHP Working Paper No. 22 (Washington, DC: Cold War International History Project, 1999), pp. 69–71. 240. “Joint Proclamation,” 29 October 1964, in PA/AA-MfAA, A 12169, pp. 43–46.

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Cambodia had to jettison its own non-discrimination policy toward divided states. In February 1965, Sihanouk hosted a conference of the peoples of In- dochina in Phnom Penh, attended by representatives from Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam—but not South Vietnam.241 In the following years, Sihanouk walked a fine line in keeping his country out the war, cooperating with North Vietnam, Laos, and Communist China and juggling the increasingly polarized situation at home. However, after early 1968 the international situation seemed to improve. With the in South Vietnam early that year, the DRV and its Communist guerrilla allies in the south, the NLF, attempted to accelerate the end of the war. Although mil- itarily a disaster, it at least led to negotiations between Hanoi and Washington by May. In this context, as a GDR report asserted, Sihanouk speculated about an early end to the conflict and about the future of Cambodia in post-conflict Indochina.242 This, however, required some strategic rethinking in the game of establishing or resuming diplomatic relations. In mid-April 1969, Cam- bodia announced the restoration of its relationship with the United States, only to delay relations at the end of the month because of unresolved border disputes between South Vietnam and Cambodia.243 By July, the two countries had re-established relations on the level of charges´ d’affaires.244 To counterbal- ance the impression of moving toward the United States, Sihanouk decided to raise the mission of the NLF and those of both Germanys to the level of full embassies.245 While Sihanouk still discriminated against the government of South Vietnam by recognizing its internal enemy, the decision with regard to the two Germanys served his claim of continued adherence to the doctrine of neutrality. The North Vietnamese government fully understood that the prince had to tread carefully in the minefield of international relations.246 In the end, however, Sihanouk was unable to balance the polarizing sit- uation within his own country. In late March 1970, his prime minister, Lon Nol, deposed him during his visit to Moscow and then engaged in an openly

241. Mentioned in “Conc.: Position of Vietnamese Emigrant groups,” 24 February 1965, in PA/AA- MfAA, C 5449, p. 1. 242. “Summary,” 5 February 1970, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 210/76, pp. 18–26. 243. “Assessment,” 25 April 1969, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 226/76, pp. 14–18; and “Dear Comrade Dr. Kiesewetter,” 2 May 1969, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 226/76, pp. 23–27. 244. Xiong Xianghui, “Dakai ZhongMei guanxi de qianzhou: 1969nian siwei laoshi dui guoji xingshi yanjiu he jianyi de qianqianhouhou” [Prelude to the opening of Sino-American relations: The whole story of the study and recommendations on the world situation of the four teachers in 1969], Zhonggong dangshi ziliao, Vol. 42 (1992), p. 76. 245. “On the Elevation,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 1426/72, pp. 48–57. 246. “Note,” 26 June 1969, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 603/75, pp. 2–4.

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pro-American policy.247 With that, the Non-Aligned Movement faced the dilemma of what to do with Cambodian membership. Egypt early on an- nounced that it would not recognize the new government as legitimate.248 But what to do with Sihanouk, who still claimed to be the legal head of the Cambodian government? After being deposed, the prince traveled from Moscow to exile in Beijing.249 In a conversation with the GDR ambassador there, he claimed the anti-American war of the Vietnamese people was closely linked with the Cambodian people’s struggle against Lon Nol.250 In late April, Sihanouk hosted another conference of the Indochinese people, held in and organized by the PRC. The final communique´ of the gathering called for united action against U.S. imperialism.251 In the wake of the conference, on 5 May, Sihanouk formed a coalition together with the , the Cam- bodian Communists waging a guerrilla was against Lon Nol in the country itself.252 In late May, the prince traveled to North Vietnam for another “little summit” in the mountains north of Hanoi. Here, Sihanouk and representa- tives of the Vietnamese and Laotian Communists agreed on a joint strategy of cooperation with the PRC and unity among the Indochinese for the liberation of Southeast Asia from U.S. imperialism.253 At this point, however, Sihanouk could no longer claim he followed a policy of neutralism. The Indochina conflict rattled the consultative conference of the NAM in Dar es Salaam in mid-April 1970, occurring just between Lon Nol’s coup and Sihanouk’s founding of an exile government. Lon Nol and Sihanouk both claimed the right of Cambodia’s representation; and, to make things even more complicated, the pseudo-government of the NLF—the so-called Republic of South Vietnam (RSV)—requested full membership. The multilay- ered problem sparked heated debates among the 71 delegations. Not surpris- ingly, Lon Nol received little support, but Sihanouk, a founding father of the

247. “Political Report No. 3/1970,” 25 March 1970, in BA Bern, E 2300–01, Akzession 1977/28, Box 15, “1970 p.a. 21.31 Peking Politische Berichte,” pp. 1–5. 248. “On the attitude,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 223/76, pp. 8–13. 249. Xiong Xianghui, “Dakai,” pp. 92–93. 250. “Dear Comrades,” 10 April 1970, in PA/AA-MfAA, G-A 421, pp. 141–144. 251. “Joint Declaration,” n.d., in PA/AA-MfAA, C 5449, pp. 4–16. 252. “Telno 307,” 5 May 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1180, p. 1. 253. “Telno 43,” 2 June 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1180, pp. 1–2; “Telno 42,” 28 May 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1180, pp. 1–4; “China/Cambodia/Indo-China,” 25 August 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1180, pp. 1–2; and “No. 44 Saving,” 29 June 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1180, pp. 1–2.

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movement, surprisingly gathered only one third of the vote.254 Eventually, the consultative conference came to the impractical conclusion that the two Cam- bodian warring parties should agree on a joint delegation to the impending Lusaka conference.255 Despite an open letter to all non-aligned countries in early August, Sihanouk could not convince the NAM of his claim.256 The Lusaka conference in early September could agree only on observer status for the RSV but still failed to decide the Cambodian issue. Seven mem- ber states supported Lon Nol, and seventeen Sihanouk—both far short of a majority.257 The Cambodian issue exploded at the NAM foreign ministers’ conference in Georgetown, , in early August 1972. The fracas occurred over a request by the RSV for full membership. A majority agreed, but five countries from Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, and Burma—and three African countries opposed the idea. When the chair of the conference, Guyana’s Foreign Minister Sonny Ramphal, prematurely announced that the conference had reached a consensus, the delegations of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Laos claimed a violation of procedure and walked out.258 With some of the staunchest supporters of Lon Nol’s regime gone, the conference quickly decided to award Cambodia’s representation to Sihanouk’s government-in- exile.259 The first formal non-aligned conference in the Western hemisphere thus ended in turmoil and internal division.260 The issue of the representation of Cambodia also plagued the preparations for the Algiers conference in the summer of 1973. The Paris agreements of January had ended U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. A month later, the warring parties in the also agreed to end their strife.261 But civil war in Cambodia continued, and Lon Nol could claim to have been in power for three years. He thus demanded in May the right to represent

254. “On the Preparations,” 27 April 1970, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 522/72, pp. 60–61. 255. “Telegram No. 199,” 13 April 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 28/1178, “Attendance of Yugoslavia at Preparatory Meeting for Conference of Non-Alignment in Dar-es-Salaam,” p. 1. 256. “Sihanouk’s Open Letter to Non-aligned Countries,” 9 August 1970, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1180, pp. 1–6. 257. “Report,” 14 September 1970, in AJ, KPR I-4-a/9, pp. 1–2. 258. “FM Georgetown 11/1240Z,” 11 August 1972, in TNAUK, FCO 15/1503, “Participation of South East Asian Foreign Ministers in Georgetown Conference of Non-Aligned Countries,” pp. 1–2. 259. “Resolution on Indochina,” n.d., in TNAUK, FCO 15/1503, “Participation of South East Asian Foreign Ministers in Georgetown Conference of Non-Aligned Countries,” pp. 1–3. 260. “Summary Record,” 18 August 1972, in TNAUK, FCO 63/955, “Conference of 16-Nation Preparatory Committee of the Non-Aligned Group in Guyana,” p. 1. 261. “Note,” 6 December 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 513/76, pp. 97–101.

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Cambodia in the NAM.262 The military resistance to his rule in Cambodia, led by the anti-Vietnamese and pro-Chinese Khmer Rouge, was fragmented into warring groups, and his personal rival, Sihanouk, was losing credibility by making frantic and contradictory policy announcements.263 Yet, despite all of this, the NAM decided to keep Cambodian representation with the exiled prince for the Algiers conference.264 In the end, non-aligned support for Sihanouk meant indirect support for the Khmer Rouge. The fallen prince had politically aligned in May 1970 with the radical Maoist guerillas in his country in the hope of using them to topple the hated Lon Nol. Little did he and the NAM know in 1972 and 1973 that, by doing so, they were lending credibility to a radical movement that would establish a rampantly murderous regime in the name of anti-imperialism only a few years later. Why did the NAM give up on its neutralism with regard to Indochina? Certainly, it would have been difficult to exclude a member on the basis of radical political changes or internal conflict. Indonesia had remained in the movement despite the coup of 1965 and its obvious pro-U.S. leanings afterward. In the end, the radical anti-imperialist outlook of the movement, based on increased membership of former , contributed to its curious decisions on the RSV in 1970 and on Cambodia in 1972. While the Cairo conference in 1964 had listed the Vietnam problem un- der the heading of divided nations, the subsequent conferences in Belgrade (consultative, 1969) and Lusaka (1970) went further by calling for the with- drawal of all “foreign troops,” meaning all U.S. troops, from Indochina.265 To be sure, U.S. participation in the Indochina conflict was disproportionate and heavy-handed and found little support across the globe by the early 1970s. The United States alienated not only the non-aligned but even its own allies, such as its European NATO partners.266 Moreover, North Vietnam skillfully shaped international opinion by portraying itself as the victim of aggression and as

262. “Dear Comrade Storm,” 1 June 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 217/76, p. 66. 263. “Dear Comrade Stillmann,” 24 August 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 217/76, p. 71. 264. “Nonaligned Warn Major Countries,” The New York Times, 10 September 1973, pp. 1, 6. Little information is available on the decision-making process that led to Sihanouk’s representation of Cambodia in Lusaka. 265. “Declaration,” n.d., in AJ, KPR I-4-a/6, p. 24; “Nonaligned Bloc Ends 4-Day Talks,” The New York Times, 12 July 1969, p. 5; and “Nonaligned Parley Ends; Liberation Groups Backed,” The New York Times, 11 September 1970, p. 5. 266. Mark Atwood Lawrence, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History (Oxford, UK: , 2008), pp. 111–112.

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the champion of decolonization.267 Nonetheless, Hanoi shared equal responsi- bility for needlessly prolonging the war by insisting on unrealistic positions in the negotiations that started in April 1968. The general framework to which it eventually consented in the final agreements of early 1973 had been on the table for years. Much blood was shed for nothing because of the intransigent negotiation stands of North Vietnam’s leaders.268 Thus, the anti-imperialist urge of the NAM at the time had more to do with the anti-U.S. feelings of the movement’s majority than with the maintenance of principled positions on neutralism.269

Conclusion

In 1973, many of the Cold War problems that had plagued the Non-Aligned Movement either were disappearing quickly or had become less acute. The German-German contest for recognition had ended by late 1972 with the Basic Treaty that normalized their mutual relationship and opened the way to dual recognition and double membership in the United Nations. Nuclear arms limitation had been enshrined in SALT in May 1972, although the NAM’s call for complete disarmament was far from being fulfilled. Still, the superpowers promised to continue to negotiate on further limitations. Sadat’s policies had limited both Cold War and non-aligned influence in the Middle East. Indochina seemed to be on the road to a settlement, except for NAM member-state Cambodia. Even in the sphere of decolonization, which is not a focus of this article, only a few colonies were left worldwide, and among those few, some were on the verge of becoming independent states. Thus, the movement entered a phase in which it had to shift its focus toward problems that primarily concerned the growing number of member- states, such as economic development.270 The early 1970s marked a transition from a tense period in international relations to a more tranquil one for both the world at large and the movement itself. Superpower detente´ had contributed its share to this development. However, it was also a conscious choice by the

267. Lien-Hang Ngyuen, “‘Between the Storms’: North Vietnam’s Strategy during the Second In- dochina War (1955–1973),” Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 2008. 268. Luthi,¨ “Beyond Betrayal.” 269. “Meeting,” 11 September 1973, in TNAUK, FCO 93/7, “Conference of Non-aligned States Held in Algiers, 5–9 September 1973,” pp. 1–5. 270. “The Fourth Non-aligned Summit Conference at Algiers,” 19 September 1973, in TNAUK, FCO 93/7, “Conference of Non-aligned States Held in Algiers, 5–9 September 1973,” p. 2.

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movement itself to focus on its own problems. But once the Cold War heated up again in the early , the NAM had become irrelevant to the conflict’s major issues. The developments from 1961 to 1973 were related to some of the inherent problems of the movement. In the end, the non-aligned were numerically too weak throughout the 1960s and politically too disparate in general to develop the influence they had hoped for in 1961. Indeed, what did Yugoslavia share with Saudi Arabia, or Guinea with Indonesia? The charismatic personalities of Tito, Nasser, and Nehru managed to compensate for programmatic shortcom- ings in the early years. But even the big three could not agree about the precise role of the movement in international relations. Should the non-aligned stay apart from Cold War issues, such as Germany, that did not concern the whole world, or should they try to mediate in them? In any case, by 1973 only one of the big three—Tito—remained in power, aged and beyond his prime.271 The successors of the two others, although impressive in their own ways, lacked the charisma or the will to step into the large shoes left by their predecessors. The fundamental problem remained that, beyond the claim that the non-aligned were just non-aligned, there was “no real common ethos except a feeling of having been badly done by,” as a British report noted in 1973.272 Alienation, however, was not a sound basis for joint action. The weak internal glue among the non-aligned was severely eroded when leading member-states were forced to decide between two opposite choices: the movement’s stated goals or their own vital, strategic interests. Faced with a nuclear-armed archenemy China, India jettisoned its 1964 promise not to seek nuclear weapons and drew even in the nuclear contest with its neighbor within ten years. Yugoslavia destroyed the pro-Arab alliance it had forged with the socialist world in mid-1967 within a little more than a year, when it turned away from the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies in disgust over the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. The on-off relationship between Moscow and Belgrade since 1945, and Tito’s questionable decision in 1967 to side so vocally with a fellow non-aligned country, permanently undermined the movement’s cohesion. A truly neutral stand in the Cold War, even after June 1967, would have strengthened Yugoslavia’s and the movement’s ability to mediate in the Middle Eastern. In 1969, Tito reportedly had realized his

271. See a 1969 assessment on this issue by the British, “Non-Alignment Consultative Meeting in Belgrade,” n.d., in TNAUK, FCO 28/868, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-alignment,” p. 1. 272. “The Fourth Non-Aligned Summit Conference at Algiers,” 19 September 1973, in TNAUK, FCO 93/7, “Conference of Non-Aligned States Held in Algiers, 5–9 September 1973,” p. 2.

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“over-commitment to Arabs.”273 The role of mediator in the Middle Eastern crisis eventually fell to his megalomaniac Balkan neighbor Ceaus¸escu, who hoped to receive the Nobel Peace for his efforts.274 Finally, Egypt itself came to see non-alignment in the early 1970s more as an instrument in its own national strategy than as a value in itself. It comes as no surprise that Tito, the last survivor of the original initiators, bemoaned the movement’s weakness in late 1972.275 Internal weakness was compounded by external stresses. First, the German and Berlin issues imposed themselves on the nascent movement in 1961, not only by the GDR’s design but also by the very fact of the erection of the Berlin Wall. The dishonest and pestering nature of East German diplomacy almost threatened to paralyze the Belgrade Conference. Eventually, the conference participants decided on the only reasonable way out—active disregard. Yet, because the Arab states and Cambodia were both member-states and welcome targets for East Germany’s attempts to gain recognition, the German-German Cold War threatened to reenter the movement through the back door by the late 1960s. Only developments in Soviet-FRG-GDR relations in 1970 averted this danger. Second, Khrushchev’s proclivity to use nuclear threats and bomb tests in the superpower conflict without thinking about collateral diplomatic damage forced the issue of nuclear arms onto the Belgrade Conference agenda in 1961 with little advance notice. Nuclear armament and the danger of a nuclear war were among the central concerns of the movement, which reacted appropriately with appeals for negotiations and diplomacy. The non-aligned put pressure on the nuclear powers to sign the Limited Nuclear TestBan treaty in 1962, and the vast majority supported that agreement by acceding quickly in 1963. However, after the first successful Chinese nuclear bomb test in 1964, even some of the important members of the movement were not immune to the allure of nuclear weapons when their own strategic interests were at stake. Finally, in Indochina, the regional Cold War in East Asia imposed itself on the NAM when Cambodia was drawn into the maelstrom of the Second Vietnam War. The non-reflective application of anti-imperialism led to the representation of a membership country by a deposed prince who made common cause with aligned countries

273. “Telegram Number 260,” 30 June 1969, in TNAUK, FCO 28/867, “Yugoslavia Foreign Policy: Non-Alignment,” p. 3. 274. Thomas Kunze, Nicolae Ceaus¸escu: Eine Biografie [Nicolae Ceaus¸escu: A Biography], 3rd rev. ed. (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2009), p. 218; and “Mr. Sadat’s Visit Was a Link in the Ruma- nian Connection—Bucharest Keeps Many Friends,” The New York Times, 27 November 1977, p. 175. 275. “Tito on the Foreign Policy of the SFRY,” 1 January 1973, in PA/AA-MfAA, C 384/75, pp. 20–21.

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and a wicked Communist movement. Suspending Cambodian membership wouldhavemademoresense. In the end, the Non-Aligned Movement was as much a participant in the Cold War in the period from 1961 to 1973 as it was a victim.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Christopher Goscha, Gerhard Wettig, Jovan Cavoˇ ˇski, Odd Arne Westad, and Andreas Wenger for commenting on drafts of this article. An earlier, much shorter version of the article was published as “The Non- Aligned: Apart from and Still within the Cold War,” in Natasa Miskovic, ed., The Non-Aligned (New York: , 2014), pp. 95–113.

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