Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint Georgi Arbatov en Willem Oltmans bron Georgi Arbatov en Willem Oltmans, Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint. Zed Books, Londen 1983 Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/arba001cold01_01/colofon.php © 2015 dbnl / erven Georgi Arbatov / Willem Oltmans Stichting III Publisher's Note These interviews were conducted in English. They were translated into Russian, Japanese, German and Dutch and published originally in Europe soon after the Carter-to-Reagan transition early in 1981. Since then, Mr. Oltmans and Professor Arbatov have updated major sections of the interviews to cover events during the first twenty-one months of President Reagan's administration, including the imposition of martial law in Poland, the growth of the antinuclear movement in Europe and the United States, and the overtures prior to the revival of talks between the Soviet Union and communist China. Clearly, few of Professor Arbatov's statements are extemporaneous. Most were carefully formulated in response to Mr. Oltmans' written questions and further elaborated during their discussions. Whether or not Professor Arbatov's views reflect a consensus of opinion among the Soviet leadership, his positions as chief Soviet expert on American affairs, Member of the Central Committee, and advisor to the late President Brezhnev, make him well qualified to speak to people in the West on issues of extreme importance to both the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. This is especially true in light of the fact that he has worked as a consultant to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. It is hoped that the U.K. edition of The Soviet Viewpoint will serve as a useful reference point for people in the West in their analyses and discussions of how to perceive the policies and intentions of the Soviet Union, and how to respond to them. Georgi Arbatov en Willem Oltmans, Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint VII About the Authors Georgi Arkadyevich Arbatov is the director of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies in Moscow. He is a Doctor of History, and has been a Full Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences since 1974. At the Twenty-sixth Party Congress in 1981 he was elected a Full Member of the Central Committee. He is a deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet and has been a member of the Commission on International Affairs of the Supreme Soviet's Council of Nationalities since 1974. His decorations include the Order of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Star, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, and the Badge of Honor. Georgi Arbatov was born on May 19, 1923, in the Ukrainian city of Kherson. He entered military school in June 1941, and took part in World War II as an officer of a rocket-mortar unit. Demobilized in 1944, he went on to the Moscow Institute of International Relations. He graduated in 1949 and began work as a journalist and editor at the Foreign Literature Publishing House, then on the staffs of the journals Kommunist and Problems of Peace and Socialism. From 1962 to 1964 he was a department head at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. In 1964 he became a consultant to Yuri V. Andropov, then one of the Secretaries and now the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and in 1967 began his present job as director of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies. Mr. Arbatov is the author of a number of works, including The Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (coauthor, 1958), Ideological Struggle in Georgi Arbatov en Willem Oltmans, Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint VIII International Relations Today (1970), USA: Modern Management Methods (1971), The Nixon Doctrine (1972), USA: Scientific-Technological Revolution and Foreign Policy Trends (head of research teams, 1974), and US Global Strategy in the Age of Scientific-Technological Revolution (1979). A participant of the Pugwash Conference since 1967, the Dartmouth Conference since 1969, the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues (the Palme Commission] since 1980, and the 1973 Soviet-American summit, Mr. Arbatov has long been actively involved in parliamentary contacts between the United States and the Soviet Union. He is married and has a son. Willem Oltmans, the noted Dutch journalist and author, was educated at Yale University and spent twelve years as a United Nations correspondent. On the basis of the M.I.T.-Club of Rome project Limits to Growth, Oltmans conducted a series of 120 interviews with some of the world's leading thinkers on the subject of population growth and resource exhaustion. These interviews were published in two volumes entitled On Growth (G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1974-75). After many years of political reporting, Willem Oltmans is now specializing in scientific subjects. In the summer of 1981 he completed a series of twenty-four interviews with Dr. Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1969 to 1981, a few months before Dr. Handler's death. Georgi Arbatov en Willem Oltmans, Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint IX Foreword In the years following World War II, my family left the Netherlands and emigrated to South Africa because we sincerely believed that a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was imminent. At Yale University, where I studied international relations in the class of 1950, Arnold Wolfers, master of Pierson College, where I lived, stressed that the most important outcome of World War II was not the crushing of the Nazis, but the rise of the Soviet Union to superpower status. Only in 1971 did I first journey to the USSR. I was preparing for National Dutch television a documentary on the subject ‘Limits to Growth,’ then published by the Club of Rome and put together by a team of scientists at M.I.T. using methods designed by Jay W. Forrester. For this project I interviewed and filmed both Georgi A. Arbatov, director of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies, and Dr. Jermen M. Gvishiani, vice chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology of the USSR Council of Ministers. During the following twelve years I made dozens of additional reporting trips to the Soviet Union, and whenever his schedule permitted I would sit down with Professor Arbatov to exchange views on the United States and the world. Each time I became more convinced that, aside from his occasional interviews in selected media or leading articles in Pravda, an effort should be made to let a wider public be aware of Dr. Arbatov's views and thoughts about U.S.-Soviet relations. I prepared a folder with 150 basic questions and submitted them to Professor Arbatov. In preparation, I had visited numerous USSR special- Georgi Arbatov en Willem Oltmans, Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint X ists in the United States, from the National Academy of Sciences to research centers at Harvard and Stanford, to such insiders as the Rostow brothers, Paul Nitze, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Major-General Keegan, Richard V. Allen, and others. In principle, Professor Arbatov agreed late in 1979 to prepare this book, and we immediately started working on it. The events in Iran and Afghanistan, and the overall deterioration of the international situation, naturally, became subjects of discussion, adding new dimensions and a new significance to our dialogue. Among the questions I asked, there were quite a few unpleasant ones, implying criticism of Soviet life and the policies of the USSR. Professor Arbatov did not take them as unfriendly, realizing that those questions were really on the minds of many people in the West. I think our work itself confirmed that peaceful coexistence is possible. On many questions we remained in disagreement, and yet the work went on in an atmosphere of goodwill, mutual understanding, and the desire of both sides to make the book as useful as we could. A vacuum in information no doubt prevails. Seldom do we see ourselves as others see us or as we really are. Therefore, I hope this comprehensive summary of the views of a foremost specialist from the other side will contribute to a more accurate view of how the United States, and maybe all of us in the West, are being looked upon and considered in the capital of the largest country in the world. It is a most incomplete contribution; many more questions will be on the minds of readers, as they were on mine. But projects like this are bound by certain limits, and it is hoped, nevertheless, that a modest addition will be made to a deepened and extended understanding between two great peoples, as well as to those whose principal interests are bound by history to either superpower. I am obliged to stress that part of this manuscript was completed early in 1981. Since then, Professor Arbatov and I have managed to update many of the questions and answers to cover events in the first half of the Reagan administration, including the imposition of martial law in Poland. There are still some accents on the Carter administration, Afghanistan, and other matters that might have receded into the background had I been able to complete the interviews a year later. Perhaps it is better that certain earlier events remain in focus - they are often the foundation on which present and future relations are constructed. While working on this book, I came into contact with several staff members of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. We were a cooperative team, and I would like to thank them for their assistance and encouragement.